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HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


GETTYSBURG 


(P-  13) 


A  BATTLE  IS  TO  BE  FOUGHT  HERE 


GETTYSBURG 

STORIES 

OF  THE   RED    HARVEST 
AND  THE  AFTERMATH 

BY 

ELSIE    SINGMASTER 


BOSTON    AKD    NEW    YORK 
HOUGHTON    MiFFLIN    COMF 


GETTYSBURG 

STORIES 

OF  THE   RED    HARVEST 
AND  THE  AFTERMATH 


BY 


ELSIE    SINGMASTER 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 

HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

1913 


COPYRIGHT,   1907,   BY   CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

COPYRIGHT,   1907,   1909,   1911,  AND   1912,  BY  HARPER  AND  BROTHERS 
COPYRIGHT,    1909,  BY  J.   B.   LIPPING OTT  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,   1909,   BY  THE  S.  S.   McCLURE  CO. 
COPYRIGHT,   1913,  BY  ELSIE  SINGMASTER  LEWARS 

ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  April  /g/j 


TO   MY  FATHER 

JOHN  ALDEN  SINGMASTER,  D.D. 

THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 


1863-1913 

FOUR  SCORE  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers 
brought  forth  on  this  continent,  a  new  nation,  con 
ceived  in  Liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that 
all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing 
whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so 
dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great 
battle-field  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  por 
tion  of  that  field,  as  a  final  resting  place  for  those  who 
here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is 
altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

But  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate  —  we  can 
not  consecrate  — we  cannot  hallow  —  this  ground.  The 
brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have 
consecrated  it,  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  de 
tract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember 
what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did 
here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here 
to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have 
thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here 
dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us  —  that 
from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to 
that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  de 
votion  —  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead 
shall  not  have  died  in  vain  —  that  this  nation,  under 
God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom  —  and  that 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  peoplet 
shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

GETTYSBURG,  NOVEMBER  19,  1863. 


CONTENTS 

I.  JULY  THE  FIRST  i 

II.  THE  HOME-COMING  ...      21 

III.  VICTORY        .        .  .        .        -45 

IV.  THE  BATTLE-GROUND  ...      65 
V.  GUNNER  CRISWELL  ...      87 

VI.  THE  SUBSTITUTE  ....     109 

VII.  THE  RETREAT       .        .        .        .    133 

VIII.  THE  GREAT  DAY  .        .        .        .    157 

IX.  MARY  BOWMAN     .        .        .        .181 

NOTE.  Grateful  acknowledgment  is  made  to  the  editors  for  per 
mission  to  reprint  in  this  volume  chapters  that  first  appeared  in 
Harper's  ,  Lippincotfs,  McClure1*,  and  Scribner's  Magazines. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"A  BATTLE   is  TO  BE  FOUGHT  HERE" 
(page  13)       .         .        .         .        Frontispiece 

From  the  drawing  by  Sidney  H.  Riesenberg,  reproduced 
by  courtesy  of  Harper  and  Brothers 

"  I  CAN'T  STAND  IT,"  HE  SAID  THICKLY      26 

From  the  drawing  by  Frederic  Dorr  Steele  reproduced 
by  courtesy  of  McC lure's  Magazine 

HE   STOOD  WHERE   LINCOLN    HAD    STOOD      104 

From  the  drawing  by  C.  E.  Chambers,  reproduced  by 
courtesy  of  Harper  and  Brothers 

THEY  SAW  THE  STRANGE  OLD   FIGURE 
ON  THE  PORCH 152 

From  the  drawing  by  F.  Walter  Taylor,  reproduced  by 
courtesy  of  Chas.  Scribner's  Sons 


I 

JULY  THE   FIRST 


GETTYSBURG 


JULY  THE   FIRST 

FROM  the  kitchen  to  the  front  door,  back 
to  the  kitchen,  out  to  the  little  stone- 
fenced  yard  behind  the  house,  where  her 
children  played  in  their  quiet  fashion,  Mary 
Bowman  went  uneasily.  She  was  a  bright- 
eyed,  slender  person,  with  an  intense,  abound 
ing  joy  in  life.  In  her  red  plaid  gingham  dress, 
with  its  full  starched  skirt,  she  looked  not 
much  older  than  her  ten-year-old  boy. 

Presently,  admonishing  herself  sternly,  she 
went  back  to  her  work.  She  sat  down  in  a  low 
chair  by  the  kitchen  table,  and  laid  upon  her 
knee  a  strip  of  thick  muslin.  Upon  that  she 
placed  a  piece  of  linen,  which  she  began  to 
scrape  with  a  sharp  knife.  Gradually  a  soft 
pile  of  little,  downy  masses  gathered  in  her 
lap.  After  a  while,  as  though  this  process  were 


$£v  i:J   J  GETTYSBURG 

too  slow,  or  as  though  she  could  no  longer  en 
dure  her  bent  position,  she  selected  another 
piece  of  linen  and  began  to  pull  it  to  pieces, 
adding  the  raveled  threads  to  the  pile  of 
lint.  Suddenly,  she  slipped  her  hands  under 
the  soft  mass,  and  lifted  it  to  the  table.  For 
getting  the  knife,  which  fell  with  a  clatter,  she 
rose  and  went  to  the  kitchen  door. 

"Children,"  she  said,  "remember  you  are 
not  to  go  away." 

The  oldest  boy  answered  obediently. 
Mounted  upon  a  broomstick,  he  impersonated 
General  Early,  who,  a  few  days  before,  had 
visited  the  town  and  had  made  requisition 
upon  it;  and  little  Katy  and  the  four-year- 
old  boy  represented  General  Early's  ragged 
Confederates. 

Their  mother's  bright  eyes  darkened  as  she 
watched  them.  Those  raiding  Confederates 
had  been  so  terrible  to  look  upon,  so  ragged, 
so  worn,  so  starving.  Their  eyes  had  been 
like  black  holes  in  their  brown  faces ;  they  had 
had  the  figures  of  youth  and  the  decrepitude 
of  age.  A  straggler  from  their  ranks  had  told 
her  that  the  Southern  men  of  strength  and 


JULY  THE   FIRST  5 

maturity  were  gone,  that  there  remained  in 
his  village  in  Georgia  only  little  boys  and  old, 
old  men.  The  Union  soldiers  who  had  come 
yesterday,  marching  in  the  Emmittsburg  road, 
through  the  town  and  out  to  the  Theological 
Seminary,  were  different ;  travel-worn  as  they 
were,  they  had  seemed,  in  comparison,  like 
new  recruits. 

Suddenly  Mary  Bowman  clasped  her  hands. 
Thank  God,  they  would  not  fight  here!  Once 
more  frightened  Gettysburg  had  anticipated 
a  battle,  once  more  its  alarm  had  proved  ridi 
culous.  Early  had  gone  days  ago  to  York, 
the  Union  soldiers  were  marching  toward 
Chambersburg.  Thank  God,  John  Bowman, 
her  husband,  was  not  a  regular  soldier,  but  a 
fifer  in  the  brigade  band.  Members  of  the 
band,  poor  Mary  thought,  were  safe,  danger 
would  not  come  nigh  them.  Besides,  he  was 
far  away  with  Hooker's  idle  forces.  No  fail 
ure  to  give  battle  made  Mary  indignant,  no 
reproaches  of  an  inert  general  fell  from  her 
lips.  She  was  passionately  grateful  that  they 
did  not  fight. 

It  was  only  on  dismal,  rainy  days,  or  when 


6  GETTYSBURG 

she  woke  at  night  and  looked  at  her  little 
children  lying  in  their  beds,  that  the  vague, 
strange  possibility  of  her  husband's  death  oc 
curred  to  her.  Then  she  assured  herself  with 
conviction  that  God  would  not  let  him  die. 
They  were  so  happy,  and  they  were  just 
beginning  to  prosper.  They  had  paid  the 
last  upon  their  little  house  before  he  went  to 
war;  now  they  meant  to  save  money  and  to 
educate  their  children.  By  fall  the  war  would 
be  over,  then  John  would  come  back  and 
resume  his  school-teaching,  and  everything 
would  be  as  it  had  been. 

She  went  through  the  kitchen  again  and 
out  to  the  front  door,  and  looked  down  the 
street  with  its  scattering  houses.  Opposite 
lived  good-natured,  strong-armed  Hannah 
Casey;  in  the  next  house,  a  dozen  rods  away, 
the  Deemer  family.  The  Deemers  had  had 
great  trouble,  the  father  was  at  war  and  the 
two  little  children  were  ill  with  typhoid  fever. 
In  a  little  while  she  would  go  down  and  help. 
It  was  still  early;  perhaps  the  children  and 
their  tired  nurses  slept. 

Beyond,  the  houses  were  set  closer  together, 


JULY  THE   FIRST  7 

the  Wilson  house  first,  where  a  baby  was 
watched  for  now  each  day,  and  next  to  it  the 
McAtee  house,  where  Grandma  McAtee  was 
dying.  In  that  neighborhood,  and  a  little 
farther  on  past  the  new  court-house  in  the 
square,  which  Gettysburg  called  "The  Dia 
mond,"  men  were  moving  about,  some 
mounted,  some  on  foot.  Their  presence  did 
not  disturb  Mary,  since  Early  had  gone  in  one 
direction  and  the  Union  soldiers  were  going  in 
the  other.  Probably  the  Union  soldiers  had 
come  to  town  to  buy  food  before  they  started 
on  their  march.  She  did  not  even  think  un 
easily  of  the  sick  and  dying ;  she  said  to  her 
self  that  if  the  soldiers  had  wished  to  fight 
here,  the  good  men  of  the  village,  the  judge, 
the  doctor,  and  the  ministers  would  have  gone 
forth  to  meet  them  and  with  accounts  of  the 
invalids  would  have  persuaded  them  to  stay 
away! 

Over  the  tops  of  the  houses,  Mary  could 
see  the  cupola  of  the  Seminary  lifting  its 
graceful  dome  and  slender  pillars  against  the 
blue  sky.  She  and  her  husband  had  always 
planned  that  one  of  their  boys  should  go  to 


8  GETTYSBURG 

the  Seminary  and  learn  to  be  a  preacher;  she 
remembered  their  hope  now.  Far  beyond 
Seminary  Ridge,  the  foothills  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  lay  clear  and  purple  in  the  morning 
sunshine.  The  sun,  already  high  in  the  sky, 
was  behind  her;  it  stood  over  the  tall,  thick 
pines  of  the  little  cemetery  where  her  kin  lay, 
and  where  she  herself  would  lie  with  her  hus 
band  beside  her.  Except  for  that  dim  spot, 
the  whole  lovely  landscape  was  unshadowed. 

Suddenly  she  put  out  her  hand  to  the  pillar 
of  the  porch  and  called  her  neighbor:  — 

"Hannah!" 

The  door  of  the  opposite  house  opened,  and 
Hannah  Casey's  burly  figure  crossed  the 
street.  She  had  been  working  in  her  carefully 
tended  garden  and  her  face  was  crimson. 
Hannah  Casey  anticipated  no  battle. 

"Good  morning  to  you,"  shecalled.  "What 
is  it  you  want?" 

"Come  here,"  bade  Mary  Bowman. 

The  Irishwoman  climbed  the  three  steps 
to  the  little  porch. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked  again.  "What  is 
it  you  see?" 


JULY  THE   FIRST  g 

" Look!  —  Out  there  at  the  Seminary  !  You 
can  see  the  soldiers  moving  about,  like  black 
specks  under  the  trees!" 

Hannah  squinted  a  pair  of  near-sighted 
eyes  in  the  direction  of  the  Seminary. 

"I'll  take  your  word  for  it,"  she  said. 

With  a  sudden  motion  Mary  Bowman 
lifted  her  hand  to  her  lips. 

"Early  wouldn't  come  back!"  she  whis 
pered.  "He  would  never  come  back!" 

Hannah  Casey  laughed  a  bubbling  laugh. 

"Come  back?  Those  rag-a-bones?  It  'ud 
go  hard  with  them  if  they  did.  The  Unionists 
would  n't  jump  before  'em  like  the  rabbits 
here.  But  I  did  n't  jump!  The  Bateses  fled 
once  more  for  their  lives,  it's  the  seventeenth 
time  they've  saved  their  valuable  commo 
dities  from  the  foe.  Down  the  street  they  flew, 
their  tin  dishes  and  their  precious  chiny  rat 
tling  in  their  wagon.  'Oh,  my  kind  sir!'  says 
Lillian  to  the  raggedy  man  you  fed,  —  'oh, 
my  kind  sir,  I  surrender ! '  '  You  're  right  you 
do,'  says  he.  'We're  goin'  to  eat  you  up!'  — 
'Lady/  says  that  same  snip  to  me,  'you'd 
better  leave  your  home. '  '  Worm ! '  says  I  back 


10  GETTYSBURG 

to  him,  'you  leave  my  home!'  And  you  fed 
him,  you  soft-heart !" 

"He  ate  like  an  animal,"  said  Mary;  "as 
though  he  had  had  nothing  for  days." 

"And  all  the  cave-dwellers  was  talkin' 
about  divin'  for  their  cellars.  I  was  n't  goin' 
into  no  cellar.  Here  I  stay,  aboveground,  till 
they  lay  me  out  for  good." 

Mary  Bowman  laughed  suddenly,  hysteri 
cally.  She  had  laughed  thus  far  through  all 
the  sorrows  war  had  brought,  —  poverty, 
separation,  anxiety.  She  might  still  laugh; 
there  was  no  danger;  Early  had  gone  in  one 
direction,  the  Union  soldiers  in  the  other. 

"Did  you  see  him  dive  into  the  apple- 
butter,  Hannah  Casey?  His  face  was  smeared 
with  it.  He  could  n't  wait  till  the  biscuits  were 
out  of  the  oven.  He — "  She  stopped  and 
listened,  frowning.  She  looked  out  once  more 
toward  the  ridge  with  its  moving  spots,  then 
down  at  the  town  with  its  larger  spots,  then 
back  at  the  pines,  standing  straight  and  tall 
in  the  July  sunshine.  She  could  see  the  white 
tombstones  beneath  the  trees. 

"Listen!"  she  cried. 


JULY   THE   FIRST  n 

"To  what?'*  demanded  Hannah  Casey. 

For  a  few  seconds  the  women  stood  silently. 
There  were  still  the  same  faint,  distant  sounds, 
but  they  were  not  much  louder,  not  much  more 
numerous  than  could  be  heard  in  the  village 
on  any  summer  morning.  A  heart  which 
dreaded  ominous  sound  might  have  been  set 
at  rest  by  the  peace  and  stillness. 

Hannah  Casey  spoke  irritably. 

"What  do  you  hear? " 

"No  thing/' answered  Mary  Bowman.  "But 
I  thought  I  heard  men  marching.  I  believe 
it's  my  heart  beating!  I  thought  I  heard  them 
in  the  night.  Could  you  sleep?" 

"Like  a  log!"  said  Hannah  Casey.  "Sleep? 
Why,  of  course,  I  could  sleep!  'Ain't  our  boys 
yonder?  Ain't  the  Rebs  shakin'  in  their  shoes? 
No,  they  ain't.  They  ain't  got  no  shoes. 
Ain't  the  Bateses,  them  barometers  of  war, 
still  in  their  castle,  ain't — " 

"I  slept  the  first  part  of  the  night,"  in 
terrupted  Mary  Bowman.  ' '  Then  it  seemed  to 
me  I  heard  men  marching.  I  thought  perhaps 
they  were  coming  through  the  town  from  the 
hill,  and  I  looked  out,  but  there  was  nothing 


12  GETTYSBURG 

stirring.  It  was  the  brightest  night  I  ever 
saw.  I— " 

Again  Hannah  Casey  laughed  her  mighty 
laugh.  There  were  nearer  sounds  now,  the 
rattle  of  a  cart  behind  them,  the  gallop  of 
hoofs  before.  Again  the  Bateses  were  com 
ing,  a  family  of  eight  crowded  into  a  little 
springless  wagon  with  what  household  effects 
they  could  collect.  Hannah  Casey  waved  her 
apron  at  them  and  went  out  to  the  edge  of 
the  street. 

" Run !"  she  yelled.  "Skedaddle!  Murder! 
Help!  Police!" 

Neither  her  jeers  nor  Mary  Bowman's  laugh 
could  make  the  Bateses  turn  their  heads.  Mrs. 
Bates  held  in  her  short  arms  a  feather  bed, 
her  children  tried  to  get  under  it  as  chicks 
creep  under  the  wings  of  a  mother  hen.  Down 
in  front  of  the  Deemer  house  they  stopped 
suddenly.  A  Union  soldier  had  halted  them, 
then  let  them  pass.  He  rode  his  horse  up  on 
the  pavement  and  pounded  with  his  sword 
at  the  Deemer  door. 

"He  might  terrify  the  children  to  death!" 
cried  Mary  Bowman,  starting  forward. 


JULY  THE   FIRST  13 

But  already  the  soldier  was  riding  toward 
her. 

"There  is  sickness  there!"  she  shouted  to 
his  unheeding  ears;  "you  ought  n't  to  pound 
like  that!" 

"You  women  will  have  to  stay  in  your  cel 
lars,"  he  answered.  "A  battle  is  to  be  fought 
here." 

"Here?"  said  Mary  Bowman  stupidly. 

"Get  out!"  said  Hannah  Casey.  "There 
ain't  nobody  here  to  fight  with!" 

The  soldier  rode  his  horse  to  Hannah 
Casey's  door,  and  began  to  pound  with  his 
sword. 

"I  live  there!"  screamed  Hannah.  "You 
dare  to  bang  that  door!" 

Mary  Bowman  crossed  the  street  and  looked 
up  at  him  as  he  sat  on  his  great  horse. 

"Oh,  sir,  do  you  mean  that  they  will  fight 
here?11 

"I  do." 

"In  Gettysburg?"  Hannah  Casey  could 
scarcely  speak  for  rage. 

"  In  Gettysburg." 

"Where  there  are  women  and  children?" 


I4  GETTYSBURG 

screamed  Hannah.  "And  gardens  planted? 
I  'd  like  to  see  them  in  my  garden,  I  — " 

"Get  into  your  cellars,"  commanded  the 
soldier.  "You'll  be  safe  there." 

"Sir!"  Mary  Bowman  went  still  a  little 
closer.  The  crisis  in  the  Deemer  house  was 
not  yet  passed,  even  at  the  best  it  was  doubt 
ful  whether  Agnes  Wilson  could  survive  the 
hour  of  her  trial,  and  Grandma  McAtee  was 
dying.  "  Sir ! "  said  Mary  Bowman,  earnestly, 
ignorant  of  the  sublime  ridiculousness  of  her 
reminder,  "there  are  women  and  children 
here  whom  it  might  kill." 

The  man  laughed  a  short  laugh. 

"Oh,  my  God!"  He  leaned  a  little  from 
his  saddle.  "Listen  to  me,  sister!  I  have  lost 
my  father  and  two  brothers  in  this  war.  Get 
into  your  cellars." 

With  that  he  rode  down  the  street. 

"He's  a  liar,"  cried  Hannah  Casey.  She 
started  to  run  after  him.  "Go  out  to  Peter 
son's  field  to  do  your  fighting,"  she  shouted 
furiously.  "  Nothing  will  grow  there !  Go  out 
there!" 

Then  she  stopped,  panting. 


JULY  THE   FIRST  15 

The  soldier  took  time  to  turn  and  grin  and 
wave  his  hand. 

/'He 's  a  liar,"  declared  Hannah  Casey  once 
more.  "  Early 's  went.  There  ain't  nothing 
to  fight  with." 

Still  scolding,  she  joined  Mary  Bowman  on 
her  porch.  Mary  Bowman  stood  looking 
through  the  house  at  her  children,  playing  in 
the  little  field.  They  still  played  quietly;  it 
seemed  to  her  that  they  had  never  ceased  to 
miss  their  father. 

Then  Mary  Bowman  looked  down  the 
street.  In  the  Diamond  the  movement  was 
more  rapid,  the  crowd  was  thicker.  Women 
had  come  out  to  the  doorsteps,  men  were 
hurrying  about.  It  seemed  to  Mary  that  she 
heard  Mrs.  Deemer  scream.  Suddenly  there 
was  a  clatter  of  hoofs;  a  dozen  soldiers,  riding 
from  the  town,  halted  and  began  to  question 
her.  Their  horses  were  covered  with  foam; 
they  had  come  at  a  wild  gallop  from  Seminary 
Ridge. 

"This  is  the  road  to  Baltimore?" 

"Yes." 

"Straight  ahead? " 


16  GETTYSBURG 

"Yes." 

Gauntleted  hands  lifted  the  dusty  reins. 

"You'd  better  protect  yourself!  There  is 
going  to  be  a  battle." 

"Here?"  asked  Mary  Bowman  again  stu 
pidly. 

"Right  here." 

Hannah  Casey  thrust  herself  between  them. 

"Who  are  you  goin'  to  fight  with,  say?" 

The  soldiers  grinned  at  her.  They  were 
already  riding  away. 

"With  the  Turks,"  answered  one  over  his 
shoulder. 

Another  was  kinder,  or  more  cruel. 

"Sister!"  he  explained,  "it  is  likely  that 
two  hundred  thousand  men  will  be  engaged 
on  this  spot.  The  whole  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia  is  advancing  from  the  north,  the 
whole  Army  of  the  Potomac  is  advancing 
from  the  south,  you  — " 

The  soldier  did  not  finish.  His  galloping 
comrades  had  left  him,  he  hastened  to  join 
them.  After  him  floated  another  accusation  of 
lying  from  the  lips  of  Hannah  Casey.  Hannah 
was  irritated  because  the  Bateses  were  right. 


JULY  THE   FIRST  17 

" Hannah!"  said  Mary  Bowman  thickly. 
"I  told  you  how  I  dreamed  I  heard  them 
marching.  It  was  as  though  they  came  in 
every  road,  Hannah,  from  Baltimore  and 
Taneytown  and  Harrisburg  and  York.  The 
roads  were  full  of  them,  they  were  shoulder 
against  shoulder,  and  their  faces  were  like 
death!" 

Hannah  Casey  grew  ghastly  white.  Super 
stition  did  what  common  sense  and  word  of 
man  could  not  do. 

"So  you  did!"  she  whispered;  "so  you 
did!" 

Mary  Bowman  clasped  her  hands  and  looked 
about  her,  down  the  street,  out  toward  the 
Seminary,  back  at  the  grim  trees.  The  little 
sounds  had  died  away;  there  was  now  a  mighty 
stillness. 

"  He  said  the  whole  Army  of  the  Potomac," 
she  repeated.  "John  is  in  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac." 

"That  is  what  he  said,"  answered  the 
Irishwoman. 

"What will  the  Deemersdo?"  cried  Mary 
Bowman.  "And  the  Wilsons?" 


18  GETTYSBURG 

"God  knows!"  said  Hannah  Casey. 

Suddenly  Mary  Bowman  lifted  her  hands 
above  her  head. 

"Look!"  she  screamed. 

"What?"  cried  Hannah  Casey.  "What  is 
it?"  • 

Mary  Bowman  went  backwards  toward 
the  door,  her  eyes  still  fixed  on  the  distant 
ridge,  as  though  they  could  not  be  torn  away. 
It  was  nine  o'clock;  a  shrill  little  clock  in  the 
house  struck  the  hour. 

"  Children !  "called  Mary  Bowman.  "  Come ! 
See!" 

The  children  dropped  the  little  sticks  with 
which  they  played  and  ran  to  her. 

"What  is  it?"  whined  Hannah  Casey. 

Mary  Bowman  lifted  the  little  boy  to  her 
shoulder.  A  strange,  unaccountable  excite 
ment  possessed  her,  she  hardly  knew  what 
she  was  doing.  She  wondered  what  a  battle 
would  be  like.  She  did  not  think  of  wounds, 
or  of  blood  or  of  groans,  but  of  great  sounds, 
of  martial  music,  of  streaming  flags  carried 
aloft.  She  sometimes  dreamed  that  her  hus 
band,  though  he  had  so  unimportant  a  place, 


JULY  THE   FIRST  19 

might  perform  some  great  deed  of  valor,  might 
snatch  the  colors  from  a  wounded  bearer, 
and  lead  his  regiment  to  victory  upon  the  field 
of  battle.  And  now,  besides,  this  moment,  he 
was  marching  home!  She  never  thought  that 
he  might  die,  that  he  might  be  lost,  swallowed 
up  in  the  yawning  mouth  of  some  great  battle- 
trench;  she  never  dreamed  that  she  would 
never  see  him  again,  would  hunt  for  him  among 
thousands  of  dead  bodies,  would  have  her 
eyes  filled  with  sights  intolerable,  with  wretch 
edness  unspeakable,  would  be  tortured  by  a 
thousand  agonies  which  she  could  not  as 
suage,  torn  by  a  thousand  griefs  beside  her 
own.  She  could  not  foresee  that  all  the  dear 
woods  and  fields  which  she  loved,  where  she 
had  played  as  a  child,  where  she  had  pic 
nicked  as  a  girl,  where  she  had  walked  with 
her  lover  as  a  young  woman,  would  become, 
from  Round  Top  to  the  Seminary,  from  the 
Seminary  to  Gulp's  Hill,  a  great  shambles, 
then  a  great  charnel-house.  She  lifted  the 
little  boy  to  her  shoulder  and  held  him  aloft. 
"See,  darling!"  she  cried.  "See  the  bright 
things  sparkling  on  the  hill!" 


20  GETTYSBURG 

"What  are  they?"  begged  Hannah  Casey, 
trying  desperately  to  see. 

"They  are  bayonets  and  swords!" 

She  put  the  little  boy  down  on  the  floor, 
and  looked  at  him.  Hannah  Casey  had 
clutched  her  arm. 

"Hark!"  said  Hannah  Casey. 

Far  out  toward  the  shining  cupola  of  the 
Seminary  there  was  a  sharp  little  sound,  then 
another,  and  another. 

"What  is  it?"  shrieked  Hannah  Casey. 
"Oh,  what  is  it?" 

"What  is  it!"  mocked  Mary  Bowman.  "  It 
is  —  " 

A  single,  thundering,  echoing  blast  took 
the  words  from  Mary  Bowman's  lips. 

Stupidly,  she  and  Hannah  Casey  looked'  at 
one  another. •' 


II 

THE   HOME-COMING 


II 

THE   HOME-COMING 

T^ARSONS  knew  little  of  the  great  wave 
A  of  protest  that  swept  over  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  when  Hooker  was  replaced  by 
Meade.  The  sad  depression  of  the  North, 
sick  at  heart  since  December,  did  not  move 
him;  he  was  too  thoroughly  occupied  with 
his  own  sensations.  He  sat  alone,  when  his 
comrades  would  leave  him  alone,  brooding, 
his  terror  equally  independent  of  victory  or 
defeat.  The  horror  of  war  appalled  him.  He 
tried  to  reconstruct  the  reasons  for  his  enlist 
ing,  but  found  it  impossible.  The  war  had 
made  of  him  a  stranger  to  himself.  He  could 
scarcely  visualize  the  little  farm  that  he  had 
left,  or  his  mother.  Instead  of  the  farm,  he 
saw  corpse-strewn  fields;  instead  of  his 
mother,  the  mutilated  bodies  of  young  men. 
His  senses  seemed  unable  to  respond  to  any 
other  stimuli  than  those  of  war.  He  had  not 
been  conscious  of  the  odors  of  the  sweet  Mary- 


24  GETTYSBURG 

land  spring,  or  of  the  song  of  mocking-birds ; 
his  nostrils  were  full  of  the  smell  of  blood,  his 
ears  of  the  cries  of  dying  men. 

Worse  than  the  recollection  of  what  he  had 
seen  were  the  forebodings  that  filled  his  soul. 
In  a  day  —  yes,  an  hour,  for  the  rumors  of 
coming  battle  forced  themselves  to  his  unwill 
ing  ears  —  he  might  be  as  they.  Presently  he 
too  would  lie,  staring,  horrible,  under  the 
Maryland  sky. 

The  men  in  his  company  came  gradually  to 
leave  him  to  himself.  At  first  they  thought  no 
less  of  him  because  he  was  afraid.  They  had 
all  been  afraid.  They  discussed  their  sensa 
tions  frankly  as  they  sat  round  the  camp-fire, 
or  lay  prone  on  the  soft  grass  of  the  fields. 

"Scared!"  laughed  the  oldest  member  of 
the  company,  who  was  speaking  chiefly  for  the 
encouragement  of  Parsons,  whom  he  liked. 
"My  knees  shook,  and  my  chest  caved  in. 
Every  bullet  killed  me.  But  by  the  time  I  'd 
been  dead  about  forty  times,  I  saw  the 
Johnnies,  and  something  hot  got  into  my 
throat,  and  I  got  over  it." 

"And  weren't  you   afraid   afterwards?" 


THE   HOME-COMING          25 

asked  Parsons,  trying  to  make  his  voice  sound 
natural. 

"No,  never." 

"But  I  was,"  confessed  another  man.  His 
face  was  bandaged,  and  blood  oozed  through 
from  the  wound  that  would  make  him  leer 
like  a  satyr  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  "  I  get  that 
way  every  time.  But  I  get  over  it.  I  don't  get 
hot  in  my  throat,  but  my  skin  prickles." 

Young  Parsons  walked  slowly  away,  his 
legs  shaking  visibly  beneath  him. 

Adams  turned  on  his  side  and  watched  him. 

"Got  it  bad,"  he  said  shortly.  Then  he  lay 
once  more  on  his  back  and  spread  out  his 
arms.  "God,  but  I'm  sick  of  it!  And  if  Lee's 
gone  into  Pennsylvania,  and  we're  to  chase 
him,  and  old  Joe's  put  out,  the  Lord  knows 
what '11  become  of  us.  I  bet  you  a  pipeful  of 
tobacco,  there  ain't  one  of  us  left  by  this  time 
next  week.  I  bet  you  — " 

The  man  with  the  bandaged  face  did  not 
answer.  Then  Adams  saw  that  Parsons  had 
come  back  and  was  staring  at  him. 

"Ain't  Hooker  in  command  no  more?"  he 
asked. 


26  GETTYSBURG 

"No;Meade." 

"And  we're  going  to  Pennsylvania?'1 

"Guess  so."  Adams  sat  upright,  the  ex 
pression  of  kindly  commiseration  on  his  face 
changed  to  one  of  disgust.  "Brace  up,  boy. 
What's  the  matter  with  you?" 

Parsons  sat  down  beside  him.  His  face  was 
gray;  his  blue  eyes,  looking  out  from  under 
his  little  forage-cap,  closed  as  though  he  were 
swooning. 

"  I  can't  stand  it,"  he  said  thickly.  "  I  can 
see  them  all  day,  and  hear  them  all  night,  all 
the  groaning  —  I  — " 

The  old  man  pulled  from  his  pocket  a  little 
bag.  It  contained  his  last  pipeful  of  tobacco, 
the  one  that  he  had  been  betting. 

"Take  that.  You  got  to  get  such  things  out 
of  your  head.  It  won't  do.  The  trouble  with 
you  is  that  ever  since  you've  enlisted,  this 
company  's  been  hanging  round  the  outside. 
You  ain't  been  in  a  battle.  One  battle '11  cure 
you.  You  got  to  get  over  it." 

"Yes,"  repeated  the  boy.  "I  got  to  get 
over  it." 

He  lay  down  beside  Adams,  panting.   The 


CAN'T  STAND  IT,"  HE  SAID  THICKLY 


THE   HOME-COMING  27 

moon,  which  would  be  full  in  a  few  days,  had 
risen;  the  sounds  of  the  vast  army  were  all 
about  them  —  the  click  of  tin  basin  against 
tin  basin,  the  stamping  of  horses,  the  oaths 
and  laughter  of  men.  Some  even  sang.  The 
boy,  when  he  heard  them,  said,  "Oh,  God!" 
It  was  his  one  exclamation.  It  had  broken 
from  his  lips  a  thousand  times,  not  as  a  prayer 
or  as  an  imprecation,  but  as  a  mixture  of 
both.  It  seemed  the  one  word  that  could 
represent  the  indescribable  confusion  of  his 
mind.  He  said  again,  "Oh,  God!  Oh,  God!" 

It  was  not  until  two  days  later,  when  they 
had  been  for  hours  on  the  march,  that  he 
realized  that  they  were  approaching  the  little 
Pennsylvania  town  where  he  lived.  He  had 
been  marching  almost  blindly,  his  eyes  nearly 
closed,  still  contemplating  his  own  misery  and 
fear.  He  could  not  discuss  with  his  comrades 
the  next  day's  prospects,  he  did  not  know 
enough  about  the  situation  to  speculate. 
Adams's  hope  that  there  would  be  a  battle 
brought  to  his  lips  the  familiar  "Oh,  God!" 
He  had  begun  to  think  of  suicide. 

It  was  almost  dark  once  more  when  they 


28  GETTYSBURG 

stumbled  into  a  little  town.  I  ts  streets,  washed 
by  rains,  had  been  churned  to  thick  red  mud 
by  thousands  of  feet  and  wheels.  The  mud 
clung  to  Parsons's  worn  shoes;  it  seemed  to 
his  half -crazy  mind  like  blood.  Then,  sud 
denly,  his  gun  dropped  with  a  wild  clatter  to 
the  ground. 

1 '  It's  Taneytown!"  he  called  wildly.  "  It's 
Taneytown." 

Adams  turned  upon  him  irritably.  He  was 
almost  too  tired  to  move. 

* '  What  if  it  is  Taneytown ?  "  he  thundered. 
"  Pick  up  your  gun,  you  young  fool." 

"But  it's  only  ten  miles  from  home!" 

The  shoulder  of  the  man  behind  him  sent 
Parsons  sprawling.  He  gathered  himself  up 
and  leaped  into  his  place  by  Adams's  side. 
His  step  was  light. 

"Ten  miles  from  home!  We're  only  ten 
miles  from  home! "  —  he  said  it  as  though  the 
evil  spirits  which  had  beset  him  had  been  ex 
orcised.  He  saw  the  little  whitewashed  farm 
house,  the  yellowing  wheat-fields  beside  it; 
he  saw  his  mother  working  in  the  garden,  he 
heard  her  calling. 


THE   HOME-COMING          29 

Presently  he  began  to  look  furtively  about 
him.  If  he  could  only  get  away,  if  he  could 
get  home,  they  could  never  find  him.  There 
were  many  places  where  he  could  hide,  holes 
and  caverns  in  the  steep,  rough  slopes  of  Big 
Round  Top,  at  whose  foot  stood  his  mother's 
little  house.  They  could  never  find  him.  He 
began  to  speak  to  Adams  tremulously. 

"When  do  you  think  we'll  camp?" 

'Adams  answered  him  sharply. 

"Not  to-night.  Don't  try  any  running- 
away  business,  boy.  'T  ain't  worth  while. 
They'll  shoot  you.  Then  you'll  be  food  for 


crows." 


The  boy  moistened  his  parched  lips. 

"  I  did  n't  say  anything  about  running 
away,"  he  muttered.  But  hope  died  in  his 
eyes. 

It  did  not  revive  when,  a  little  later,  they 
camped  in  the  fields,  trampling  the  wheat 
ready  for  harvest,  crushing  down  the  corn 
already  waist-high,  devouring  their  rations 
like  wolves,  then  falling  asleep  almost  on 
their  feet. 

indeed   might   they   sleep   heavily, 


30  GETTYSBURG 

dully,  undisturbed  by  cry  of  picket  or  gallop 
of  returning  scout.  The  flat  country  lay  clear 
and  bright  in  the  moonlight;  to  the  north 
west  they  could  almost  see  the  low  cone  of 
Big  Round  Top,  to  which  none  then  gave  a 
thought,  not  even  Parsons  himself,  who  lay 
with  his  tanned  face  turned  up  toward  the 
sky.  Once  his  sunken  eyes  opened,  but  he  did 
not  remember  that  now,  if  ever,  he  must  steal 
away,  over  his  sleeping  comrades,  past  the 
picket-line,  and  up  the  long  red  road  toward 
home.  He  thought  of  home  no  more/  nor  of 
fear;  he  lay  like  a  dead  man. 

It  was  a  marvelous  moonlit  night.  All  was 
still  as  though  round  Gettysburg  lay  no  vast 
armies,  seventy  thousand  Southerners  to  the 
north,  eighty -five  thousand  Northerners  to  the 
south.  They  lay  or  moved  quietly,  like  great 
octopi,  stretching  out,  now  and  then,  grim 
tentacles,  which  touched  or  searched  vainly. 
They  knew  nothing  of  the  quiet,  academic 
town,  lying  in  its  peaceful  valley  away  from 
the  world  for  which  it  cared  little.  Mere  chance 
decreed  that  on  the  morrow  its  name  should 
stand  beside  Waterloo. 


THE   HOME-COMING  31 

Parsons  whimpered  the  next  morning  when 
he  heard  the  sound  of  guns.  He  knew  what 
would  follow.  In  a  few  hours  the  firing  would 
cease;  then  they  would  march,  wildly  seeking 
an  enemy  that  seemed  to  have  vanished,  or 
covering  the  retreat  of  their  own  men;  and 
there  would  be  once  more  all  the  ghastly 
sounds  and  cries.  But  the  day  passed,  and 
they  were  still  in  the  red  fields. 

It  was  night  when  they  began  to  march 
once  more.  All  day  the  sounds  of  firing  had 
echoed  faintly  from  the  north,  bringing  fierce 
rage  to  the  hearts  of  some,  fear  to  others,  and 
dread  unspeakable  to  Parsons.  He  did  not 
know  how  the  day  passed.  He  heard  the  guns, 
he  caught  glimpses  now  and  then  of  messen 
gers  galloping  to  headquarters;  he  sat  with 
bent  head  and  staring  eyes.  Late  in  the  after 
noon  the  firing  ceased,  and  he  said  over  and 
over  again,  "Oh,  God,  don't  let  us  go  that 
way!  Oh,  God,  don't  let  us  go  that  way!"  He 
did  not  realize  that  the  noise  came  from  the 
direction  of  Gettysburg,  he  did  not  compre 
hend  that  "  that  way  "  meant  home,  he  felt  no 
anxiety  for  the  safety  of  his  mother;  he  knew 


32  GETTYSBURG 

only  that,  if  he  saw  another  dead  or  dying 
man,  he  himself  would  die.  Nor  would  his 
death  be  simply  a  growing  unconsciousness; 
he  would  suffer  in  his  body  all  the  agony  of 
the  wounds  upon  which  he  looked. 

The  great  octopus  of  which  he  was  a  part 
did  not  feel  in  the  least  the  spark  of  resistance 
in  him,  one  of  the  smallest  ofthe  particles  that 
made  up  its  vast  body.  When  the  moon  had 
risen,  he  was  drawn  in  toward  the  centre  with 
the  great  tentacle  to  which  he  belonged.  The 
octopus  suffered ;  other  vast  arms  were  bleed 
ing  and  almost  severed.  It  seemed  to  shudder 
with  foreboding  for  the  morrow. 
'  Round  Top  grew  clear  before  them  as  they 
marched.  The  night  was  blessedly  cool  and 
bright,  and  they  went  as  though  by  day,  but 
fearfully,  each  man's  ears  strained  to  hear. 
It  was  like  marching  into  the  crater  of  a  vol 
cano  which,  only  that  afternoon,  had  been  in 
fierce  eruption.  It  was  all  the  more  horrible 
because  now  they  could  see  nothing  but  the 
clear  July  night,  hear  nothing  but  the  soft 
sounds  of  summer.  There  was  not  even  a  flag 
of  smoke  to  warn  them. 


THE   HOME-COMING          33 

They  caught,  now  and  again,  glimpses  of 
men  hiding  behind  hedge-rows, then  hastening 
swiftly  away. 

"Desertin',"  said  Adams  grimly. 

"What  did  you  say?"  asked  Parsons. 

He  had  heard  distinctly  enough,  but  he 
longed  for  the  sound  of  Adams's  voice.  When 
Adams  repeated  the  single  word,  Parsons  did 
not  hear.  He  clutched  Adams  by  the  arm. 

"You  see  that  hill,  there  before  us?" 

"Yes." 

"Gettysburg  is  over  that  hill.  There's  the 
cemetery.  My  father's  buried  there." 

Adams  looked  in  under  the  tall  pines.  He 
could  see  the  white  stones  standing  stiffly  in 
the  moonlight. 

"We're  goin'  in  there,"  he  said.  "Keep 
your  nerve  up  there,  boy." 

Adams  had  seen  other  things  besides  the 
white  tombstones,  things  that  moved  faintly 
or  lay  quietly,  or  gave  forth  ghastly  sounds. 
He  was  conscious,  by  his  sense  of  smell,  of  the 
army  about  him  and  of  the  carnage  that  had 
been. 

Parsons,   strangely   enough,    had   neither 


34  GETTYSBURG 

heard  nor  smelled.  A  sudden  awe  came  upon 
him;  the  past  returned:  he  remembered  his 
father,  his  mother's  grief  at  his  death,  his 
visits  with  her  to  the  cemetery.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  he  was  again  a  boy  stealing  home 
from  a  day's  fishing  in  Rock  Creek,  a  little 
fearful  as  he  passed  the  cemetery  gate.  He 
touched  Adams's  arm  shyly  before  he  began 
to  sling  off  his  knapsack  and  to  lie  down  as 
his  comrades  were  doing  all  about  him. 

"That  is  my  father's  grave,"  he  whispered. 

Then,  before  the  kindly  answer  sprang  from 
Adams's  lips,  a  gurgle  came  into  Parsons's 
throat  as  though  he  were  dying.  One  of  the 
apparitions  that  Adams  had  seen  lifted  itself 
from  the  grass,  leaving  behind  dark  stains. 
The  clear  moonlight  left  no  detail  of  the  hid 
eous  wounds  to  the  imagination. 

"Parsons!"  cried  Adams  sharply. 

But  Parsons  had  gone,  leaping  over  the 
graves,  bending  low  by  the  fences,  dashing 
across  an  open  field,  then  losing  himself  in  the 
woodland.  For  a  moment  Adams's  eyes  fol 
lowed  him,  then  he  saw  that  the  cemetery 
and  the  outlying  fields  were  black  with  ten 


THE   HOME-COMING          35 

thousand  men.  It  would  be  easy  for  Parsons 
to  get  away. 

"No  hope  for  him,"  he  said  shortly,  as  he 
set  to  work  to  do  what  he  could  for  the 
maimed  creature  at  his  feet.  Dawn,  he  knew, 
must  be  almost  at  hand;  he  fancied  that  the 
moonlight  was  paling.  He  was  almost  crazy 
for  sleep,  sleep  that  he  would  need  badly 
enough  on  the  morrow,  if  he  were  any  prophet 
of  coming  events. 

Parsons,  also,  was  aware  of  the  tens  of  thou 
sands  of  men  about  him,  to  him  they  were 
dead  or  dying  men.  He  staggered  as  he  ran, 
his  feet  following  unconsciously  the  path  that 
took  him  home  from  fishing,  along  the  low 
ridge,  past  scattered  farmhouses,  toward  the 
cone  of  Round  Top.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
dead  men  leaped  at  him  and  tried  to  stop  him, 
and  he  ran  ever  faster.  Once  he  shrieked, 
then  he  crouched  in  a  fence-corner  and  hid. 
He  would  have  been  ludicrous,  had  the  hor 
rors  from  which  he  fled  been  less  hideous. 

He,  too,  felt  the  dawn  coming,  as  he  saw 
his  mother's  house.  He  sobbed  like  a  little 
child,  and,  no  longer  keeping  to  the  shade, 


36  GETTYSBURG 

ran  across  the  open  fields.  There  were  no 
dead  men  here,  thank  God!  He  threw  him 
self  frantically  at  the  door,  and  found  it 
locked.  Then  he  drew  from  the  window  the 
nail  that  held  it  down,  and  crept  in.  He  was 
ravenously  hungry,  and  his  hands  made  havoc 
in  the  familiar  cupboard.  He  laughed  as  he 
found  cake,  and  the  loved  " drum-sticks'*  of 
his  childhood. 

He  did  not  need  to  slip  off  his  shoes  for  fear 
of  waking  his  mother,  for  the  shoes  had  no 
soles;  but  he  stooped  down  and  removed  them 
with  trembling  hands.  Then  a  great  peace 
seemed  to  come  into  his  soul.  He  crept  on 
his  hands  and  knees  past  his  mother's  door, 
and  climbed  to  his  own  little  room  under 
the  eaves,  where,  quite  simply,  as  though 
he  were  a  little  boy,  and  not  a  man  deserting 
from  the  army  on  the  eve  of  a  battle,  he  said 
his  prayers  and  went  to  bed. 

When  he  awoke,  it  was  late  afternoon.  He 
thought  at  first  that  he  had  been  swinging, 
and  had  fallen;  then  he  realized  that  he  still 
lay  quietly  in  his  bed.  He  stretched  himself, 
reveling  in  the  blessed  softness,  and  wondering 


THE   HOME-COMING          37 

why  he  felt  as  though  he  had  been  brayed  in 
a  mortar.  Then  a  roar  of  sound  shut  out  pos 
sibility  of  thought.  The  little  house  shook 
with  it.  He  covered  his  ears,  but  he  might 
as  well  have  spared  himself  his  pains.  That 
sound  could  never  be  shut  out,  neither  then, 
nor  for  years  afterward,  from  the  ears  of  those 
who  heard  it.  There  were  many  who  would 
hear  no  other  sound  forevermore.  The  coward 
began  again  his  whining,  "Oh,  God!  Oh, 
God !  ' '  His  nostrils  were  full  of  smoke ;  he  could 
smell  already  the  other  ghastly  odors  that 
would  follow.  He  lifted  himself  from  his  bed, 
and,  hiding  his  eyes  from  the  window,  felt  his 
way  down  the  steep  stairway.  He  meant, 
God  help  him!  to  go  and  hide  his  face  in  his 
mother's  lap.  He  remembered  the  soft,  cool 
smoothness  of  her  gingham  apron. 

Gasping,  he  staggered  into  her  room.  But 
his  mother  was  not  there.  The  mattress  and 
sheets  from  her  bed  had  been  torn  off;  one 
sheet  still  trailed  on  the  floor.  He  picked  it 
up  and  shook  it.  He  was  imbecile  enough  to 
think  she  might  be  beneath  it. 

"Mother!"  he  shrieked.    "Mother!  Mo- 


38  GETTYSBURG 

ther! "  forgetting  that  even  in  that  little  room 
she  could  not  have  heard  him.  He  ran  through 
the  house,  shouting.  Everywhere  it  was  the 
same  —  stripped  beds,  cupboards  flung  wide, 
the  fringe  of  torn  curtains  still  hanging.  His 
mother  was  not  there. 

His  terror  drove  him  finally  to  the  win 
dow  overlooking  the  garden.  It  was  here 
that  he  most  vividly  remembered  her,  bend 
ing  over  her  flower-beds,  training  the  tender 
vines,  pulling  weeds.  She  must  be  here.  In 
spite  of  the  snarl  of  guns,  she  must  be  here. 
But  the  garden  was  a  waste,  the  fence  was 
down.  He  saw  only  the  thick  smoke  beyond, 
out  of  which  crept  slowly  toward  him  half  a 
dozen  men  with  blackened  faces  and  blood 
stained  clothes,  again  his  dead  men  come  to 
life.  He  saw  that  they  wore  his  own  uniform, 
but  the  fact  made  little  impression  upon  him. 
Was  his  mother  dead?  Had  she  been  killed 
yesterday,  or  had  they  taken  her  away  last 
night  or  this  morning  while  he  slept?  He  saw 
that  the  men  were  coming  nearer  to  the  house, 
creeping  slowly  on  through  the  thick  smoke. 
He  wondered  vaguely  whether  they  were 


THE   HOME-COMING          39 

coming  for  him  as  they  had  come  for  his 
mother.  Then  he  saw,  also  vaguely,  on  the 
left,  another  group  of  men,  stealing  toward 
him,  men  who  did  not  wear  his  uniform,  but 
who  walked  as  bravely  as  his  own  comrades. 

He  knew  little  about  tactics,  and  his  brain 
was  too  dull  to  realize  that  the  little  house 
was  the  prize  they  sought.  It  was  marvelous 
that  it  had  remained  unpossessed  so  long, 
when  a  tiny  rock  or  a  little  bush  was  protec 
tion  for  which  men  struggled.  The  battle  had 
surged  that  way;  the  little  house  was  to  be 
come  as  famous  as  the  Peach  Orchard  or  the 
Railroad  Cut,  it  was  to  be  the  "  Parsons 
House"  in  history.  Of  this  Parsons  had  no 
idea;  he  only  knew,  as  he  watched  them,  that 
his  mother  was  gone,  his  house  despoiled. 

Then,  suddenly,  rage  seized  upon  him,  driv 
ing  out  fear.  It  was  not  rage  with  the  men 
in  gray,  creeping  so  steadily  upon  him  —  he 
thought  of  them  as  men  like  himself,  only  a 
thousand  times  more  brave  —  it  was  rage 
with  war  itself,  which  drove  women  from  their 
homes,  which  turned  young  men  into  groan 
ing  apparitions.  And  because  he  felt  this  rage, 


40  GETTYSBURG 

he  too  must  kill.  He  knelt  down  before  the 
window,  his  gun  in  his  hand.  He  had  carried 
it  absently  with  him  the  night  before,  and  he 
had  twenty  rounds  of  ammunition.  He  took 
careful  aim:  his  hand,  thanks  to  his  mother's 
food  and  his  long  sleep,  was  quite  steady;  and 
he  pulled  the  trigger. 

At  first,  both  groups  of  men  halted.  The 
shot  had  gone  wide.  They  had  seen  the  puff 
of  smoke,  but  they  had  no  way  of  telling 
whether  it  was  friend  or  foe  who  held  the  little 
house.  There  was  another  puff,  and  a  man 
in  gray  fell.  The  men  in  blue  hastened  their 
steps,  even  yet  half  afraid,  for  the  field  was 
broad,  and  to  cross  it  was  madness  unless  the 
holders  of  the  house  were  their  own  comrades. 
Another  shot  went  wide,  another  man  in  gray 
dropped,  and  another,  and  the  men  in  blue 
leaped  on,  yelling.  Not  until  then  did  Parsons 
see  that  there  were  more  than  twice  as  many 
men  in  gray  as  men  in  blue.  The  men  in  gray 
saw  also,  and  they,  too,  ran.  The  little  house 
was  worth  tremendous  risks.  Another  man 
bounded  into  the  air  and  rolled  over,  blood 
spurting  from  his  mouth,  and  the  man  behind 


THE   HOME-COMING          41 

him  stumbled  over  him.  There  were  only 
twelve  now.  Then  there  were  eleven.  But 
they  came  on  —  they  were  nearer  than  the 
men  in  blue.  Then  another  fell,  and  another. 
It  seemed  to  Parsons  that  he  could  go  on 
forever  watching  them.  He  smiled  grimly  at 
the  queer  antics  that  they  cut,  the  strange 
postures  into  which  they  threw  themselves. 
Then  another  fell,  and  they  wavered  and 
turned.  One  of  the  men  in  blue  stopped  at  the 
edge  of  the  garden  to  take  deliberate  aim,  but 
Parsons,  grinning,  also  leveled  his  gun  once 
more.  He  wondered,  a  little  jealously,  which 
of  them  had  killed  the  man  in  gray. 

The  six  men,  rushing  in,  would  not  believe 
that  he  was  there  alone.  They  looked  at  him, 
admiringly,  grim,  bronzed  as  they  were,  the 
veterans  of  a  dozen  battles.  They  did  not 
think  of  him  for  an  instant  as  a  boy;  his  eyes 
were  the  eyes  of  a  man  who  had  suffered  and 
who  had  known  the  hot  pleasures  of  revenge. 
It  was  he  who  directed  them  now  in  fortifying 
the  house,  he  who  saw  the  first  sign  of  the 
creeping  Confederates  making  another  sally 
from  the  left,  he  who  led  them  into  the 


42  GETTYSBURG 

woods  when,  reinforced  by  a  hundred  of  their 
comrades,  they  used  the  little  house  only  as  a 
base  toward  which  to  retreat.  They  had  never 
seen  such  fierce  rage  as  his.  The  sun  sank  be 
hind  the  Blue  Ridge,  and  he  seemed  to  regret 
that  the  day  of  blood  was  over.  He  was  not 
satisfied  that  they  held  the  little  house;  he 
must  venture  once  more  into  the  dark  shad 
ows  of  the  woodland. 

From  there  his  new-found  comrades  dragged 
him  helpless.  His  enemies,  powerless  against 
him  by  day,  had  waited  until  he  could  not  see 
them.  His  comrades  carried  him  into  the 
house,  where  they  had  made  a  dim  light. 
The  smoke  of  battle  seemed  to  be  lifting; 
there  was  still  sharp  firing,  but  it  was  silence 
compared  to  what  had  been,  peace  compared 
to  what  would  be  on  the  morrow. 

They  laid  him  on  the  floor  of  the  little 
kitchen,  and  looked  at  the  wide  rent  in  his 
neck,  and  lifted  his  limp  arm,  not  seeing  that 
a  door  behind  them  had  opened  quietly, 
and  that  a  woman  had  come  up  from  the  deep 
cellar  beneath  the  house.  There  was  not  a 
cellar  within  miles  that  did  not  shelter  fright- 


THE   HOME-COMING          43 

ened  women  and  children.  Parsons's  mother, 
warned  to  flee,  had  gone  no  farther.  She  ap 
peared  now,  a  ministering  angel.  In  her  cellar 
was  food  in  plenty;  there  were  blankets,  band 
ages,  even  pillows  for  bruised  and  aching 
heads.  Heaven  grant  that  some  one  would 
thus  care  for  her  boy  in  the  hour  of  his  need ! 

The  men  watched  Parsons's  starting  eyes, 
thinking  they  saw  death.  They  would  not 
have  believed  that  it  was  Fear  that  had  re 
turned  upon  him,  their  brave  captain.  They 
would  have  said  that  he  never  could  have  been 
afraid.  He  put  his  hand  up  to  his  torn  throat. 
His  breath  came  in  thick  gasps.  He  mut 
tered  again,  "Oh,  God!  Oh,  God!" 

Then,  suddenly,  incomprehensibly  to  the 
men  who  did  not  see  the  gracious  figure  be 
hind  them,  peace  ineffable  came  into  his  blue 
eyes. 

"Why,  mother  1"  he  said  softly. 


Ill 

VICTORY 


Ill 

VICTORY  * 

OITTING  his  horse  easily  in  the  stone- 
O  fenced  field  near  the  rounded  clump  of 
trees  on  the  hot  noon  of  the  third  day  of  battle, 
his  heart  leaping,  sure  of  the  righteousness  of 
his  cause,  sure  of  the  overruling  providence 
of  God,  experienced  in  war,  trained  to  obed- 
dience,  accustomed  to  command,  the  young 
officer  looked  about  him. 

To  his  right  and  left  and  behind  him,  from 
Gulp's  Hill  to  Round  Top,  lay  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  the  most  splendid  army,  in  his 
opinion,  which  the  world  had  ever  seen,  an 
army  tried,  proved,  reliable  in  all  things.  The 
first  day's  defeat,  the  second  day's  victory, 

1  From  the  narrative  of  Colonel  Frank  Aretas  Haskell, 
Thirty-sixth  Wisconsin  Infantry.  While  aide-de-camp  to 
General  Gibbon  he  was  largely  instrumental  in  saving  the 
day  at  Gettysburg  to  the  Union  forces.  His  brilliant  story 
of  the  battle  is  contained  in  a  series  of  letters  written  to  his 
brother  soon  after  the  contest. 


48  GETTYSBURG 

were  past;  since  yesterday  the  battle-lines  had 
been  re-formed;  upon  them  the  young  man 
looked  with  approval,  thanking  Heaven  for 
Meade.  The  lines  were  arranged,  except  here 
in  the  very  centre  near  this  rounded  clump 
of  trees  where  he  waited,  as  he  would  have 
arranged  them  himself,  conformably  to  the 
ground,  batteries  in  place,  infantry  —  there 
a  double,  here  a  single  line  —  to  the  front. 
There  had  been  ample  time  for  such  re-forma 
tion  during  the  long,  silent  morning.  Now 
each  man  was  in  his  appointed  place/ muni 
tion- wagons  and  ambulances  waited,  regi 
mental  flags  streamed  proudly;  everywhere 
was  order,  composure.  The  laughter  and 
joking  which  floated  to  the  ears  of  the  young 
officer  betokened  also  minds  composed,  at 
ease.  Yesterday  twelve  thousand  men  had 
been  killed  or  wounded  upon  this  field;  the 
day  before  yesterday,  eleven  thousand;  to 
day,  this  afternoon,  within  a  few  hours,  eight 
thousand  more  would  fall.  Yet,  lightly,  their 
arms  stacked,  men  laughed,  and  the  young 
officer  heard  them  with  approval. 

Opposite,  on  another  ridge,  a  mile  away, 


VICTORY  49 

Lee's  army  waited.  They,  too,  were  set  out 
in  brave  array ;  they,  too,  had  re-formed ;  they, 
too,  seemed  to  have  forgotten  yesterday,  to 
have  closed  their  eyes  to  to-morrow.  From 
the  rounded  clump  of  trees,  the  young  of 
ficer  could  look  across  the  open  fields,  straight 
to  the  enemy's  centre.  Again  he  wished  for 
a  double  line  of  troops  here  about  him. 
But  Meade  alone  had  power  to  place  them 
there. 

The  young  officer  was  cultivated,  college- 
bred,  with  the  gift  of  keen  observation,  of 
vivid  expression.  The  topography  of  that 
varied  country  was  already  clear  to  him;  he 
was  able  to  draw  a  sketch  of  it,  indicating  its 
steep  hills,  its  broad  fields,  its  tracts  of  virgin 
woodland,  the  "  wave-like"  crest  upon  which 
he  now  stood.  He  could  not  have  written 
so  easily  during  the  marches  of  the  succeed 
ing  weeks  if  he  had  not  now,  in  the  midst  of 
action,  begun  to  fit  words  to  what  he  saw. 
He  watched  Meade  ride  down  the  lines, 
his  face  "calm,  serious,  earnest,  without  ar 
rogance  of  hope  or  timidity  of  fear."  He 
shared  with  his  superiors  in  a  hastily  prepared, 


50  GETTYSBURG 

delicious  lunch,  eaten  on  the  ground;  he  re 
corded  it  with  humorous  impressions  of  these 
great  soldiers. 

The  evening  before  he  had  attended  them 
in  their  council  of  war;  he  has  made  it  as  plain 
to  us  as  though  we,  too,  had  been  inside  that 
little  farmhouse.  It  is  a  picture  in  which  Rem 
brandt  would  have  delighted,  —  the  low  room, 
the  little  table  with  its  wooden  water-pail, 
its  tin  cup,  its  dripping  candle.  We  can  see 
the  yellow  light  on  blue  sleeves,  on  soft, 
slouched,  gilt-banded  hats,  on  Gibbon's  single 
star.  Meade,  tall,  spare,  sinewy;  Sedgwick, 
florid,  thick-set;  young  Howard  with  his 
empty  sleeve;  magnificent  Hancock, — of  all 
that  distinguished  company  the  young  officer 
has  drawn  imperishable  portraits. 

He  heard  their  plans,  heard  them  decide  to 
wait  until  the  enemy  had  hurled  himself 
upon  them;  he  said  with  satisfaction  that 
their  heads  were  sound.  He  recorded  also 
that  when  the  council  was  over  and  the  chance 
for  sleep  had  come,  he  could  hardly  sit  his 
horse  for  weariness,  as  he  sought  his  general's 
headquarters  in  the  sultry,  starless  midnight. 


VICTORY  51 

Yet,  now,  in  the  hot  noon  of  the  third  day,  as 
he  dismounted  and  threw  himself  down  in  the 
shade,  he  remembered  the  sound  of  the  mov 
ing  ambulances,  the  twinkle  of  their  unsteady 
lamps. 

Lying  prone,  his  hat  tilted  over  his' eyes, 
he  smiled  drowsily.  It  was  impossible  to  tell 
at  what  moment  battle  would  begin,  but  now 
there  was  infinite  peace  everywhere.  The 
young  men  of  his  day  loved  the  sounding 
poetry  of  Byron ;  it  is  probable  that  he  thought 
of  the  "  mustering  squadron, "  of  the  "  mar 
shaling  in  arms,"  of  "  battle's  magnificently- 
stern  array/'  Trained  in  the  classics  he  must 
have  remembered  lines  from  other  glorious 
histories.  "Stranger,"  so  said  Leonidas, 
"  stranger,  go  tell  it  in  Lacedsemon  that  we 
died  here  in  defense  of  her  laws."  "The  glory 
of  Miltiades  will  not  let  me  sleep!"  cried  the 
youth  of  Athens.  A  line  of  Virgil  the  young 
officer  wrote  down  afterwards  in  his  account, 
thinking  of  weary  marches:  "Forsan  et  hsec 
olim  meminisse  juvabit."  —  "  Perchance  even 
these  things  it  will  be  delightful  hereafter  to 
remember." 


52  GETTYSBURG 

Thus  while  he  lay  there,  the  noon  droned 
on.  Having  hidden  their  wounds,  ignoring 
their  losses,  having  planted  their  guidons  and 
loaded  their  guns,  the  thousands  waited. 

Still  dozing,  the  young  officer  looked  at 
his  watch.  Once  more  he  thought  of  the  centre 
and  wished  that  it  were  stronger;  then  he 
stretched  out  his  arms  to  sleep.  It  was  five 
minutes  of  one  o'clock.  Near  him  his  general 
rested  also,  and  with  them  both  time  moved 
heavily. 

Drowsily  he  closed  his  eyes,  comfortably 
he  lay.  Then,  suddenly,  at  a  distinct,  sharp 
sound  from  the  enemy's  line  he  was  awake, 
on  his  feet,  staring  toward  the  west.  Before 
his  thoughts  were  collected,  he  could  see  the 
smoke  of  the  bursting  shell ;  before  he  and  his 
fellow  officers  could  spring  to  their  saddles, 
before  they  could  give  orders,  the  iron  rain 
began  about  the  low,  wave-like  crest.  The 
breast  of  the  general's  orderly  was  torn  open, 
he  plunged  face  downward,  the  horses  which 
he  held  galloped  away.  Not  an  instant  passed 
after  that  first  shot  before  the  Union  guns 
answered,  and  battle  had  begun. 


VICTORY  53 

It  opened  without  fury,  except  the  fury  of 
sound,  it  proceeded  with  dignity,  with  majesty. 
There  was  no  charge;  that  fierce,  final  on 
rush  was  yet  hours  away;  the  little  stone  wall 
near  that  rounded  clump  of  trees,  over  which 
thousands  would  fight,  close-pressed  like 
wrestlers,  was  to  be  for  a  long  time  unstained 
by  blood.  The  Confederate  aggressor,  stand 
ing  in  his  place,  delivered  his  hoarse  challenge; 
his  Union  antagonist  standing  also  in  his  place, 
returned  thunderous  answer.  The  two  op 
posed  each  other  —  if  one  may  use  for  pas 
sion  so  terrible  this  light  comparison  —  at 
arm's  length,  like  fencers  in  a  play. 

The  business  of  the  young  officer  was  not 
with  these  cannon,  but  with  the  infantry, 
who,  crouching  before  the  guns,  hugging  the 
ground,  were  to  bide  their  time  in  safety  for 
two  hours.  Therefore,  sitting  on  his  horse,  he 
still  fitted  words  to  his  thoughts.  The  con 
flict  before  him  is  not  a  fight  for  men,  it  is  a 
fight  for  mighty  engines  of  war;  it  is  not  a 
human  battle,  it  is  a  storm,  far  above  earthly 
passion.  " Infuriate  demons"  are  these  guns, 
their  mouths  are  ablaze  with  smoky  tongues 


54  GETTYSBURG 

of  livid  fire,  their  breath  is  murky,  sulphur- 
laden;  they  are  surrounded  by  grimy,  shout 
ing,  frenzied  creatures  who  are  not  their 
masters  but  their  ministers.  Around  them 
rolls  the  smoke  of  Hades.  To  their  sound  all 
other  cannonading  of  the  young  officer's  ex 
perience  was  as  a  holiday  salute.  Solid  shot 
shattered  iron  of  gun  and  living  trunk  of  tree. 
Shot  struck  also  its  intended  target:  men  fell, 
torn ,  mangled ;  horses  started ,  stiffened ,  crashed 
to  the  ground,  or  rushed,  maddened,  away. 

Still  there  was  nothing  for  the  young  officer 
to  do  but  to  watch.  Near  him  a  man  crouched 
by  a  stone,  like  a  toad,  or  like  pagan  wor 
shiper  before  his  idol.  The  young  officer 
looked  at  him  curiously. 

"Go  to  your  regiment  and  be  a  man!"  he 
ordered. 

But  the  man  did  not  stir,  the  shot  which 
splintered  the  protecting  stone  left  him  still 
kneeling,  still  unhurt.  To  the  young  officer  he 
was  one  of  the  unaccountable  phenomena  of 
battle,  he  was  incomprehensible,  monstrous. 

He  noted  also  the  curious  freaks  played  by 
round  shot,  the  visible  flight  of  projectiles 


VICTORY  55 

through  the  air,  their  strange  hiss  "with 
sound  of  hot  iron,  plunged  into  water."  He 
saw  ambulances  wrecked  as  they  moved  along; 
he  saw  frantic  horses  brought  down  by  shells ; 
he  calls  them  "horse-tamers  of  the  upper 
air."  He  saw  shells  fall  into  limber-boxes,  he 
heard  the  terrific  roar  which  followed  louder 
than  the  roar  of  guns;  he  observed  the  fall  of 
officer,  of  orderly,  of  private  soldier. 

After  the  first  hour  of  terrific  din,  he  rode 
with  his  general  down  the  line.  The  infantry 
still  lay  prone  upon  the  ground,  out  of  range 
of  the  missiles.  The  men  were  not  suffering 
and  they  were  quiet  and  cool.  They  professed 
not  to  mind  the  confusion;  they  claimed 
laughingly  to  like  it. 

From  the  shelter  of  a  group  of  trees  the 
young  officer  and  his  general  watched  in  si 
lence.  For  that  "awful  universe  of  battle," 
it  seemed  now  that  all  other  expressions  were 
feeble,  mean.  The  general  expostulated  with 
frightened  soldiers  who  were  trying  to  hide 
near  by.  He  did  not  reprove  or  command, 
he  reminded  them  that  they  were  in  the  hands 
of  God,  and  therefore  as  safe  in  one  place  as 


56  GETTYSBURG 

another.  He  assured  his  young  companion 
of  his  own  faith  in  God. 

Slowly,  after  an  hour  and  a  half,  the  roar 
of  battle  abated,  and  the  young  officer  and 
his  general  made  their  way  back  along  the 
line.  By  three  o'clock  the  great  duel  was 
over;  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  guns,  having 
been  fired  rapidly  for  two  hours,  seemed  to 
have  become  mortal,  and  to  suffer  a  mortal's 
exhaustion.  Along  the  crest,  battery-men 
leaned  upon  their  guns,  gasped,  and  wiped 
the  grime  and  sweat  from  their  faces. 

Again  there  was  deep,  ominous  silence.  Of 
the  harm  done  on  the  opposite  ridge  they  could 
know  nothing  with  certainty.  They  looked 
about,  then  back  at  each  other  questioningly. 
Here  disabled  guns  were  being  taken  away, 
fresh  guns  were  being  brought  up.  The  Union 
lines  had  suffered  harm,  but  not  irreparable 
harm.  That  centre  for  which  the  young  officer 
had  trembled  was  still  safe.  Was  the  strug 
gle  over?  Would  the  enemy  withdraw?  Had 
yesterday's  defeat  worn  him  out;  was  this 
great  confusion  intended  to  cover  his  retreat? 
Was  it  — 


VICTORY  57 

Suddenly,  madly,  the  young  officer  and  his 
general  flung  themselves  back  into  their  sad 
dles,  wildly  they  galloped  to  the  summit  of 
that  wave-like  crest. 

What  they  saw  there  was  incredible,  yet 
real;  it  was  impossible,  yet  it  was  visible. 
How  far  had  the  enemy  gone  in  the  retreat 
which  they  suspected?  The  enemy  was  at 
hand.  What  of  their  speculations  about  his 
withdrawal,  of  their  cool  consideration  of  his 
intention?  In  five  minutes  he  would  be  upon 
them.  From  the  heavy  smoke  he  issued,  regi 
ment  after  regiment,  brigade  after  brigade, 
his  front  half  a  mile  broad,  his  ranks  shoulder 
to  shoulder,  line  supporting  line.  His  eyes 
were  fixed  upon  that  rounded  clump  of  trees, 
his  course  was  directed  toward  the  centre  of 
that  wave-like  crest.  He  was  eighteen  thou 
sand  against  six  thousand;  should  his  gray 
mass  enter,  wedge-like,  the  Union  line,  yes 
terday's  Union  victories,  day  before  yester 
day's  Union  losses  would  be  in  vain. 

To  the  young  officer,  enemies  though  they 
were,  they  seemed  admirable.  They  had  but 
one  soul;  they  would  have  been,  under  a  less 


58  GETTYSBURG 

deadly  fire,  opposed  by  less  fearful  odds,  an 
irresistible  mass.  Before  them  he  saw  their 
galloping  officers,  their  scarlet  flags;  he  dis 
cerned  their  gun-barrels  and  bayonets  gleam 
ing  in  the  sun. 

His  own  army  was  composed  also;  it  re 
quired  no  orders,  needed  no  command;  it 
knew  well  what  that  gray  wall  portended.  He 
heard  the  click  of  gun-locks,  the  clang  of 
muskets,  raised  to  position  upon  the  stone 
wall,  the  clink  of  iron  axles,  the  words  of  his 
general,  quiet,  calm,  cool. 

"Do  not  hurry!  Let  them  come  close !  Aim 
low  and  steadily!'* 

There  came  to  him  a  moment  of  fierce 
rapture.  He  saw  the  color-sergeant  tipping 
his  lance  toward  the  enemy;  he  remembered 
that  from  that  glorious  flag,  lifted  by  the 
western  breeze,  these  advancing  hosts  would 
filch  half  its  stars.  With  bursting  heart,  bless 
ing  God  who  had  kept  him  loyal,  he  determined 
that  this  thing  should  not  be. 

He  was  sent  to  Meade  to  announce  the 
coming  of  the  foe;  he  returned,  galloping 
along  the  crest.  Into  that  advancing  army  the 


VICTORY  59 

Union  cannon  poured  shells;  then,  as  the 
range  grew  shorter,  shrapnel;  then,  canister; 
and  still  the  hardy  lines  moved  on.  There  was 
no  charging  shout,  there  was  still  no  confusion, 
no  halt  under  that  raking  fire.  Stepping  over 
the  bodies  of  their  friends,  they  continued 
to  advance,  they  raised  their  muskets,  they 
fired.  There  was  now  a  new  sound,  "like 
summer  hail  upon  the  city  roofs." 

The  young  officer  searched  for  his  general, 
and  could  not  find  him.  He  had  been  mounted ; 
now,  probably  wounded,  possibly  killed,  he 
was  down  from  his  horse. 

Then,  suddenly,  once  more,  the  impossible, 
the  incredible  became  possible,  real.  The 
young  officer  had  not  dreamed  that  the  Con 
federates  would  be  able  to  advance  to  the 
Union  lines;  his  speculation  concerned  only 
the  time  they  would  be  able  to  stand  the  Union 
fire.  But  they  have  advanced,  they  are  ad 
vancing  still  farther.  And  there  in  that  weak 
centre  —  he  cannot  trust  his  own  vision  — 
men  are  leaving  the  sheltering  wall;  without 
order  or  reason,  a  "  fear-stricken  flock  of  con 
fusion,"  they  are  falling  back.  The  fate  of 


60  GETTYSBURG 

Gettysburg,  it  seemed  to  his  horrified  eyes, 
hung  by  a  spider's  single  thread. 

"A  great,  magnificent  passion"  — thus  in 
his  youthful  emotion  he  describes  it  —  came 
upon  the  young  man.  Danger  had  seemed  to 
him  throughout  a  word  without  meaning. 
Now,  drawing  his  sword,  laying  about  with 
it,  waving  it  in  the  air,  shouting,  he  rushed 
upon  this  fear-stricken  flock,  commanded  it, 
reproached  it,  cheered  it,  urged  it  back.  Al 
ready  the  red  flags  had  begun  to  thicken  and 
to  flaunt  over  the  deserted  spot;  they  were 
to  him,  he  wrote  afterwards,  like  red  to  a 
maddened  bull.  That  portion  of  the  wall  was 
lost;  he  groaned  for  the  presence  of  Gibbon, 
of  Hays,  of  Hancock,  of  Doubleday,  but  they 
were  engaged,  or  they  were  too  far  away.  He 
rushed  hither  and  yon,  still  beseeching,  com 
manding,  praying  that  troops  be  sent  to  that 
imperiled  spot. 

Then,  in  joy  which  was  almost  insanity, 
he  saw  that  gray  line  begin  to  waver  and  to 
break.  Tauntingly  he  shouted,  fiercely  his 
men  roared ;  than  their  mad  yells  no  Confeder 
ate  "Hi-yi"  was  ever  more  ferocious.  This 


VICTORY  61 

repelling  host  was  a  new  army,  sprung  Phoenix- 
like  from  the  body  of  the  old ;  to  him  its  eyes 
seemed  to  stream  lightning,  it  seemed  to 
shake  its  wings  over  the  yet  glowing  ashes 
of  its  progenitor.  He  watched  the  jostling, 
swaying  lines,  he  saw  them  boil  and  roar,  saw 
them  dash  their  flamy  spray  above  the  crest 
like  two  hostile  billows  of  a  fiery  ocean. 

Once  more  commands  are  few,  men  do  not 
heed  them.  Clearly  once  more  they  see  their 
duty,  magnificently  they  obey.  This  is  war 
at  the  height  of  its  passion,  war  at  the  summit 
of  its  glory.  A  color-sergeant  rushed  to  the 
stone  wall,  there  he  fell;  eagerly  at  once  his 
comrades  plunged  forward.  There  was  an  in 
stant  of  fierce  conflict,  of  maddening,  indistin 
guishable  confusion.  Men  wrestled  with  one 
another,  opposed  one  another  with  muskets 
used  as  clubs,  tore  at  each  other  like  wolves, 
until  spent,  exhausted,  among  heaps  of  dead, 
the  conquered  began  to  give  themselves  up. 
Back  and  forth  over  twenty- five  square  miles 
they  had  fought,  for  three  interminable  days. 
Here  on  this  little  crest,  by  this  little  wall, 
the  fight  was  ended.  Here  the  high- water 


62  GETTYSBURG 

mark  was  reached,  here  the  flood  began  its 
ebb.  Laughing,  shouting,  "so  that  the  deaf 
could  have  seen  it  in  their  faces,  the  blind 
have  heard  it  in  their  voices/'  the  conquer 
ors  proclaimed  the  victory.  Thank  God,  the 
crest  is  safe! 

Are  men  wounded  and  broken  by  the  thou 
sands,  do  they  lie  in  burning  thirst,  pleading 
for  water,  pleading  for  the  bandaging  of  bleed 
ing  arteries,  pleading  for  merciful  death?  The 
conquerors  think  of  none  of  these  things.  Is 
night  coming,  are  long  marches  coming?  Still 
the  conquerors  shout  like  mad.  Is  war  ended 
by  this  mammoth  victory?  For  months  and 
months  it  will  drag  on.  Is  this  conquered  foe  a 
stranger,  will  he  now  withdraw  to  a  distant 
country?  He  is  our  brother,  his  ills  are'  ours, 
these  wounds  which  we  have  given,  we  shall 
feel  ourselves  for  fifty  years.  Is  this  brave 
young  orficer  to  enjoy  the  reward  of  his  great 
courage,  to  live  in  fame,  to  be  honored  by  his 
countrymen?  At  Cold  Harbor  he  is  to  perish 
with  a  bullet  in  his  forehead.  Is  not  all  this 
business  of  war  mad? 


VICTORY  63 

It  is  a  feeble,  peace-loving,  fireside-living 
generation  which  asks  such  questions  as 
these. 

Now,  thank  God,  the  crest  is  safe! 


IV 
THE  BATTLE-GROUND 


IV 
THE  BATTLE-GROUND 

MERCIFULLY,  Mary  Bowman,  a  widow, 
whose  husband  had  been  missing  since 
the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  had  been  warned, 
together  with  the  other  citizens  of  Gettys 
burg,  that  on  Thursday  the  nineteenth  of 
November,  1863,  she  would  be  awakened  from 
sleep  by  a  bugler's  reveille,  and  that  during 
that  great  day  she  would  hear  again  the 
dread  sound  of  cannon. 

Nevertheless,  hearing  again  the  reveille, 
she  sat  up  in  bed  with  a  scream  and  put  her 
hands  over  her  ears.  Then,  gasping,  groping 
about  in  her  confusion  and  terror,  she  rose 
and  began  to  dress.  She  put  on  a  dress  which 
had  been  once  a  bright  plaid,  but  which  now, 
having  lost  both  its  color  and  the  stiff,  out 
standing  quality  of  the  skirts  of  '63,  hung 
about  her  in  straight  and  dingy  folds.  It  was 
clean,  but  it  had  upon  it  certain  ineradicable 


68  GETTYSBURG 

brown  stains  on  which  soap  and  water  seemed 
to  have  had  no  effect.  She  was  thin  and  pale, 
and  her  eyes  had  a  set  look,  as  though  they 
saw  other  sights  than  those  directly  about  her. 

In  the  bed  from  which  she  had  risen  lay 
her  little  daughter;  in  a  trundle-bed  near  by, 
her  two  sons,  one  about  ten  years  old,  the 
other  about  four.  They  slept  heavily,  lying 
deep  in  their  beds,  as  though  they  would  never 
move.  Their  mother  looked  at  them  with  her 
strange,  absent  gaze;  then  she  barred  a  little 
more  closely  the  broken  shutters,  and  went 
down  the  stairs.  The  shutters  were  broken 
in  a  curious  fashion.  Here  and  there  they  were 
pierced  by  round  holes,  and  one  hung  from  a 
single  hinge.  The  window-frames  were  with 
out  glass,  the  floor  was  without  carpet,  the 
beds  without  pillows. 

In  her  kitchen  Mary  Bowman  looked  about 
her  as  though  still  seeing  other  sights.  Here, 
too,  the  floor  was  carpetless.  Above  the  stove 
a  patch  of  fresh  plaster  on  the  wall  showed 
where  a  great  rent  had  been  filled  in;  in  the 
doors  were  the  same  little  round  holes  as  in 
the  shutters  of  the  room  above.  But  there 


THE   BATTLE-GROUND        69 

was  food  and  fuel,  which  was  more  than  one 
might  have  expected  from  the  aspect  of  the 
house  and  its  mistress.  She  opened  the  shat 
tered  door  of  the  cupboard,  and,  having  made 
the  fire,  began  to  prepare  breakfast. 

Outside  the  house  there  was  already,  at 
six  o'clock,  noise  and  confusion.  Last  evening 
a  train  from  Washington  had  brought  to  the 
village  Abraham  Lincoln;  for  several  days 
other  trains  had  been  bringing  less  distin 
guished  guests,  until  thousands  thronged  the 
little  town.  This  morning  the  tract  of  land 
between  Mary  Bowman's  house  and  the  vil 
lage  cemetery  was  to  be  dedicated  for  the 
burial  of  the  Union  dead,  who  were  to  be 
laid  there  in  sweeping  semicircles  round  a 
centre  on  which  a  great  monument  was  to 
rise. 

But  of  the  dedication,  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  of  his  distinguished  asso 
ciates,  of  the  great  crowds,  of  the  soldiers, 
of  the  crape-banded  banners,  Mary  Bowman 
and  her  children  would  see  nothing.  Mary 
Bowman  would  sit  in  her  little  wrecked  kitchen 
with  her  children.  For  to  her  the  President 


70  GETTYSBURG 

of  the  United  States  and  others  in  high  places 
who  prosecuted  war  or  who  tolerated  war, 
who  called  for  young  men  to  fight,  were  hate 
ful.  To  Mary  Bowman  the  crowds  of  curious 
persons  who  coveted  a  sight  of  the  great 
battle-fields  were  ghouls;  their  eyes  wished  to 
gloat  upon  ruin,  upon  fragments  of  the  weap 
ons  of  war,  upon  torn  bits  of  the  habiliments 
of  soldiers;  their  feet  longed  to  sink  into  the 
loose  ground  of  hastily  made  graves;  the  dis 
covery  of  a  partially  covered  body  was  pre 
cious  to  them. 

Mary  Bowman  knew  that  field!  From 
Gulp's  Hill  to  the  McPherson  farm,  from  Big 
Round  Top  to  the  poorhouse,  she  had  traveled 
it,  searching,  searching,  with  frantic,  insane 
disregard  of  positions  or  of  possibility.  Her 
husband  could  not  have  fallen  here  among 
the  Eleventh  Corps,  he  could  not  lie  here 
among  the  unburied  dead  of  the  Louisiana 
Tigers!  If  he  was  in  the  battle  at  all,  it  was  at 
the  Angle  that  he  fell. 

She  had  not  been  able  to  begin  her  search 
immediately  after  the  battle  because  there 
were  forty  wounded  men  in  her  little  house; 


THE   BATTLE-GROUND       71 

she  could  not  prosecute  it  with  any  diligence 
even  later,  when  the  soldiers  had  been  carried 
to  the  hospitals,  in  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
the  Catholic  Church,  the  two  Lutheran 
churches,  the  Seminary,  the  College,  the 
Court-House,  and  the  great  tented  hospital 
on  the  York  road.  Nurses  were  here,  Sisters 
of  Mercy  were  here,  compassionate  women 
were  here  by  the  score;  but  still  she  was 
needed,  with  all  the  other  women  of  the  vil 
lage,  to  nurse,  to  bandage,  to  comfort,  to  pray 
with  those  who  must  die.  Little  Mary  Bow 
man  had  assisted  at  the  amputation  of  limbs, 
she  had  helped  to  control  strong  men  torn  by 
the  frenzy  of  delirium,  she  had  tended  poor 
bodies  which  had  almost  lost  all  semblance  to 
humanity.  Neither  she  nor  any  of  the  other 
women  of  the  village  counted  themselves  es 
pecially  heroic ;  the  delicate  wife  of  the  judge, 
the  petted  daughter  of  the  doctor,  the  gently 
bred  wife  of  the  preacher  forgot  that  fainting 
at  the  sight  of  blood  was  one  of  the  distin 
guishing  qualities  of  their  sex;  they  turned 
back  their  sleeves  and  repressed  their  tears, 
and,  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  Mary  Bow- 


72  GETTYSBURG 

man  and  her  Irish  neighbor,  Hannah  Casey, 
they  fed  the  hungry  and  healed  the  sick  and 
clothed  the  naked.  If  Mary  Bowman  had 
been  herself,  she  might  have  laughed  at  the 
sight  of  her  dresses  cobbled  into  trousers,  her 
skirts  wrapped  round  the  shoulders  of  sick 
men.  But  neither  then  nor  ever  after  did 
Mary  laugh  at  any  incident  of  that  summer. 

Hannah  Casey  laughed,  and  by  and  by  she 
began  to  boast.  Meade,  Hancock,  Slocum, 
were  non-combatants  beside  her.  She  had 
fought  whole  companies  of  Confederates,  she 
had  wielded  bayonets,  she  had  assisted  at 
the  spiking  of  a  gun,  she  was  Barbara  Frietchie 
and  Moll  Pitcher  combined.  But  all  her  lun 
acy  could  not  make  Mary  Bowman  smile. 

Of  John  Bowman  no  trace  could  be  found. 
No  one  could  tell  her  anything  about  him, 
to  her  frantic  letters  no  one  responded.  Her 
old  friend,  the  village  judge,  wrote  letters 
also,  but  could  get  no  reply.  Her  husband  was 
missing;  it  was  probable  that  he  lay  some 
where  upon  this  field,  the  field  upon  which 
they  had  wandered  as  lovers. 

In  midsummer  a  few  trenches  were  opened, 


THE   BATTLE-GROUND       73 

and  Mary,  unknown  to  her  friends,  saw  them 
opened.  At  the  uncovering  of  the  first  great 
pit,  she  actually  helped  with  her  own  hands. 
For  those  of  this  generation  who  know  no  thing 
of  war,  that  fact  may  be  written  down,  to  be 
passed  over  lightly.  The  soldiers,  having  been 
on  other  battle-fields,  accepted  her  presence 
without  comment.  She  did  not  cry,  she  only 
helped  doggedly,  and  looked  at  what  they 
found.  That,  too,  may  be  written  down  for 
a  generation  which  has  not  known  war. 

Immediately,  an  order  went  forth  that  no 
graves,  large  or  small,  were  to  be  opened  be 
fore  cold  weather.  The  citizens  were  panic- 
stricken  with  fear  of  an  epidemic;  already 
there  were  many  cases  of  dysentery  and 
typhoid.  Now  that  the  necessity  for  daily 
work  for  the  wounded  was  past,  the  village 
became  nervous,  excited,  irritable.  Several 
men  and  boys  were  killed  while  trying  to 
open  unexploded  shells;  their  deaths  added 
to  the  general  horror.  There  were  constant 
visitors  who  sought  husbands,  brothers,  sweet 
hearts;  with  these  the  Gettysburg  women 
were  still  able  to  weep,  for  them  they  were 


74  GETTYSBURG 

still  able  to  care;  but  the  constant  demand 
for  entertainment  for  the  curious  annoyed 
those  who  wished  to  be  left  alone  to  recover 
from  the  shock  of  battle.  Gettysburg  was 
prostrate,  bereft  of  many  of  its  wordly  pos 
sessions,  drained  to  the  bottom  of  its  well  of 
sympathy.  Its  schools  must  be  opened,  its 
poor  must  be  helped.  Cold  weather  was  com 
ing  and  there  were  many,  like  Mary  Bowman, 
who  owned  no  longer  any  quilts  or  blankets, 
who  had  given  away  their  clothes,  their  linen, 
even  the  precious  sheets  which  their  grand 
mothers  had  spun.  Gettysburg  grudged  no 
thing,  wished  nothing  back,  it  asked  only  to 
be  left  in  peace. 

When  the  order  was  given  to  postpone  the 
opening  of  graves  till  fall,  Mary  began  to  go 
about  the  battle-field  searching  alone.  Her 
good,  obedient  children  stayed  at  home  in  the 
house  or  in  the  little  field.  They  were  begin 
ning  to  grow  thin  and  wan,  they  were  shivering 
in  the  hot  August  weather,  but  their  mother 
did  not  see.  She  gave  them  a  great  deal  more 
to  eat  than  she  had  herself,  and  they  had  far 
better  clothes  than  her  blood-stained  motley. 


THE   BATTLE-GROUND        75 

She  went  about  the  battle-field  with  her 
eyes  on  the  ground,  her  feet  treading  gently, 
anticipating  loose  soil  or  some  sudden  ob 
stacle.  Sometimes  she  stooped  suddenly.  To 
fragments  of  shells,  to  bits  of  blue  or  gray 
cloth,  to  cartridge  belts  or  broken  muskets,  she 
paid  no  heed ;  at  sight  of  pitiful  bits  of  human 
bodies  she  shuddered.  But  there  lay  also  upon 
that  field  little  pocket  Testaments,  letters, 
trinkets,  photographs.  John  had  had  her  pho 
tograph  and  the  children's,  and  surely  he  must 
have  had  some  of  the  letters  she  had  written ! 

But  poor  Mary  found  nothing. 

One  morning,  late  in  August,  she  sat  beside 
her  kitchen  table  with  her  head  on  her  arm. 
The  first  of  the  scarlet  gum  leaves  had  begun 
to  drift  down  from  the  shattered  trees;  it 
would  not  be  long  before  the  ground  would 
be  covered,  and  those  depressed  spots,  those 
tiny  wooden  headstones,  those  fragments 
of  blue  and  gray  be  hidden.  The  thought 
smothered  her.  She  did  not  cry,  she  had  not 
cried  at  all.  Her  soul  seemed  hardened,  stiff, 
like  the  terrible  wounds  for  which  she  had 
helped  to  care. 


76  GETTYSBURG 

Suddenly,  hearing  a  sound,  Mary  had 
looked  up.  The  judge  stood  in  the  doorway; 
he  had  known  all  about  her  since  she  was  a 
little  girl;  something  in  his  face  told  her  that 
he  knew  also  of  her  terrible  search.  She  did 
not  ask  him  to  sit  down,  she  said  nothing  at 
all.  She  had  been  a  loquacious  person,  she 
had  become  an  abnormally  silent  one.  Speech 
hurt  her. 

The  judge  looked  round  the  little  kitchen. 
The  rent  in  the  wall  was  still  unmended,  the 
chairs  were  broken;  there  was  nothing  else 
to  be  seen  but  the  table  and  the  rusty  stove 
and  the  thin,  friendless-looking  children 
standing  by  the  door.  It  was  the  house  not 
only  of  poverty  and  woe,  but  of  neglect. 

"  Mary,"  said  the  judge,  "  how  do  you  mean 
to  live?" 

Mary's  thin,  sunburned  hand  stirred  a  little 
as  it  lay  on  the  table. 

"I  do  not  know." 

"  You  have  these  children  to  feed  and  clothe 
and  you  must  furnish  your  house  again. 
Mary  — "  The  judge  hesitated  for  a  moment. 
John  Bowman  had  been  a  school-teacher,  a 


THE  BATTLE-GROUND        77 

thrifty,  ambitious  soul,  who  would  have 
thought  it  a  disgrace  for  his  wife  to  earn  her 
living.  The  judge  laid  his  hand  on  the  thin 
hand  beside  him.  "Your  children  must  have 
food,  Mary.  Come  down  to  my  house,  and 
my  wife  will  give  you  work.  Come  now." 

Slowly  Mary  had  risen  from  her  chair,  and 
smoothed  down  her  dress  and  obeyed  him. 
Down  the  street  they  went  together,  seeing 
fences  still  prone,  seeing  walls  torn  by  shells, 
past  the  houses  where  the  shock  of  battle  had 
hastened  the  deaths  of  old  persons  and  little 
children,  and  had  disappointed  the  hearts  of 
those  who  longed  for  a  child,  to  the  judge's 
house  in  the  square.  There  wagons  stood 
about,  loaded  with  wheels  of  cannon,  frag 
ments  of  burst  caissons,  or  with  long,  narrow, 
pine  boxes,  brought  from  the  railroad,  to  be 
stored  against  the  day  of  exhumation.  Men 
were  laughing  and  shouting  to  one  another, 
the  driver  of  the  wagon  on  which  the  long 
boxes  were  piled  cracked  his  whip  as  he 
urged  his  horses. 

Hannah  Casey  congratulated  her  neighbor 
heartily  upon  her  finding  work. 


78  GETTYSBURG 

"That'll  fix  you  up,"  she  assured  her. 

She  visited  Mary  constantly,  she  reported 
to  her  the  news  of  the  war,  she  talked  at 
length  of  the  coming  of  the  President. 

"I'm  going  to  see  him,"  she  announced. 
"  I  'm  going  to  shake  him  by  the  hand.  I  'm 
going  to  say, '  Hello,  Abe,  you  old  rail-splitter, 
God  bless  you!'  Then  the  bands '11  play,  and 
the  people  will  march,  and  the  Johnny  Rebs 
will  hear  'em  in  their  graves." 

Mary  Bowman  put  her  hands  over  her  ears. 

"  I  believe  in  my  soul  you'd  let  'em  all  rise 
from  the  dead!" 

"  I  would!"  said  Mary  Bowman  hoarsely. 
"I  would!" 

"Well,  not  so  Hannah  Casey!  Look  at  me 
garden  tore  to  bits!  Look  at  me  beds,  stripped 
to  the  ropes!" 

And  Hannah  Casey  departed  to  her  house. 

Details  of  the  coming  celebration  penetrated 
to  the  ears  of  Mary  Bowman  whether  she 
wished  it  or  not,  and  the  gathering  crowds 
made  themselves  known.  They  stood  upon 
her  porch,  they  examined  the  broken  shutters, 
they  wished  to  question  her.  But  Mary  Bow- 


THE  BATTLE-GROUND        79 

man  would  answer  no  questions,  would  not 
let  herself  be  seen.  To  her  the  thing  was  hor 
rible.  She  saw  the  battling  hosts,  she  heard 
once  more  the  roar  of  artillery,  she  smelled 
the  smoke  of  battle,  she  was  torn  by  its  con 
fusion.  Besides,  she  seemed  to  feel  in  the 
ground  beneath  her  a  feebly  stirring,  suffering, 
ghastly  host.  They  had  begun  again  to  open 
the  trenches,  and  she  had  looked  into  them. 

Now,  on  the  morning  of  Thursday,  the 
nineteenth  of  November,  her  children  dressed 
themselves  and  came  down  the  steps.  They 
had  begun  to  have  a  little  plumpness  and 
color,  but  the  dreadful  light  in  their  mother's 
eyes  was  still  reflected  in  theirs.  On  the  lower 
step  they  hesitated,  looking  at  the  door.  Out 
side  stood  the  judge,  who  had  found  time  in 
the  multiplicity  of  his  cares,  to  come  to  the 
little  house. 

He  spoke  with  kind  but  firm  command. 

"Mary,"  said  he,  "you  must  take  these 
children  to  hear  President  Lincoln." 

"What!  "cried  Mary. 

"You  must  take  these  children  to  the  ex 


ercises." 


8o  GETTYSBURG 

"I  cannot !"  cried  Mary.  "I  cannot!  I 
cannot !" 

"You  must!"  The  judge  came  into  the 
room.  "Let  me  hear  no  more  of  this  going 
about.  You  are  a  Christian,  your  husband  was 
a  Christian.  Do  you  want  your  children  to 
think  it  is  a  wicked  thing  to  die  for  their 
country?  Do  as  I  tell  you,  Mary." 

Mary  got  up  from  her  chair,  and  put  on  her 
children  all  the  clothes  they  had,  and  wrapped 
about  her  own  shoulders  a  little  black  coat 
which  the  judge's  wife  had  given  her.  Then, 
as  one  who  steps  into  an  unfriendly  sea,  she 
started  out  with  them  into  the  great  crowd. 
Once  more,  poor  Mary  said  to  herself,  she 
would  obey.  She  had  seen  the  platform;  by 
going  round  through  the  citizen's  cemetery 
she  could  get  close  to  it. 

The  November  day  was  bright  and  warm, 
but  Mary  and  her  children  shivered.  Slowly 
she  made  her  way  close  to  the  platform,  pa 
tiently  she  stood  and  waited.  Sometimes  she 
stood  with  shut  eyes,  swaying  a  little.  On  the 
moonlit  night  of  the  third  day  of  battle  she 
had  ventured  from  her  house  down  toward 


THE   BATTLE-GROUND        81 

the  square  to  try  to  find  some  brandy  for  the 
dying  men  about  her,  and  as  in  a  dream  she 
had  seen  a  tall  general,  mounted  upon  a 
white  horse  with  muffled  hoofs,  ride  down  the 
street.  Bending  from  his  saddle  he  had  spoken, 
apparently  to  the  empty  air. 

"Up,  boys,  up!" 

There  had  risen  at  his  command  thousands 
of  men  lying  asleep  on  pavement  and  street, 
and  quietly,  in  an  interminable  line,  they  had 
stolen  out  like  dead  men  toward  the  Semi 
nary,  to  join  their  comrades  and  begin  the 
long,  long  march  to  Hagerstown.  It  seemed 
to  her  that  all  about  her  dead  men  might  rise 
now  to  look  with  reproach  upon  these  stran 
gers  who  disturbed  their  rest. 

The  procession  was  late,  the  orator  of  the 
day  was  delayed,  but  still  Mary  waited,  sway 
ing  a  little  in  her  place.  Presently  the  great 
guns  roared  forth  a  welcome,  the  bands 
played,  the  procession  approached.  On  horse 
back,  erect,  gauntleted,  the  President  of  the 
United  States  drew  rein  beside  the  platform, 
and,  with  the  orator  and  the  other  famous 
men,  dismounted.  There  were  great  cheers, 


82  GETTYSBURG 

there  were  deep  silences,  there  were  fresh 
volleys  of  artillery,  there  was  new  music. 

Of  it  all,  Mary  Bowman  heard  but  little. 
Remembering  the  judge,  whom  she  saw  now 
near  the  President,  she  tried  to  obey  the  spirit 
as  well  as  the  letter  of  his  command ;  she  di 
rected  her  children  to  look,  she  turned  their 
heads  toward  the  platform. 

Men  spoke  and  prayed  and  sang,  and 
Mary  stood  still  in  her  place.  The  orator  of 
the  day  described  the  battle,  he  eulogized  the 
dead,  he  proved  the  righteousness  of  this 
great  war;  his  words  fell  upon  Mary's  ears 
unheard.  If  she  had  been  asked  who  he  was, 
she  might  have  said  vaguely  that  he  was  Mr. 
Lincoln.  When  he  ended,  she  was  ready  to 
go  home.  There  was  singing;  now  she  could 
slip  away,  through  the  gaps  in  the  cemetery 
fence.  She  had  done  as  the  judge  commanded 
and  now  she  would  go  back  to  her  house. 

With  her  arms  about  her  children,  she 
started  away.  Then  some  one  who  stood 
near  by  took  her  by  the  hand. 

" Madam !"  said  he,  "the  President  is  go 
ing  to  speak !" 


THE   BATTLE-GROUND        83 

Half  turning,  Mary  looked  back.  The  thun 
der  of  applause  made  her  shiver,  made  her 
even  scream,  it  was  so  like  that  other  thun 
derous  sound  which  she  would  hear  forever. 
She  leaned  upon  her  little  children  heavily, 
trying  to  get  her  breath,  gasping,  trying  to 
keep  her  consciousness.  She  fixed  her  eyes 
upon  the  rising  figure  before  her,  she  clung 
to  the  sight  of  him  as  a  drowning  swimmer  in 
deep  waters,  she  struggled  to  fix  her  thoughts 
upon  him.  Exhaustion,  grief,  misery  threat 
ened  to  engulf  her,  she  hung  upon  him  in 
desperation. 

Slowly,  as  one  who  is  old  or  tired  or  sick  at 
heart,  he  rose  to  his  feet,  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  the  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  Army  and  Navy,  the  hope  of  his  country. 
Then  he  stood  waiting.  In  great  waves  of 
sound  the  applause  rose  and  died  and  rose 
again.  He  waited  quietly.  The  winner  of  de 
bate,  the  great  champion  of  a  great  cause, 
the  veteran  in  argument,  the  master  of  men, 
he  looked  down  upon  the  throng.  The  clear, 
simple  things  he  had  to  say  were  ready  in  his 
mind,  he  had  thought  them  out,  written  out 


84  GETTYSBURG 

a  first  draft  of  them  in  Washington,  copied  it 
here  in  Gettysburg.  It  is  probable  that  now, 
as  he  waited  to  speak,  his  mind  traveled  to 
other  things,  to  the  misery,  the  wretchedness, 
the  slaughter  of  this  field,  to  the  tears  of 
mothers,  the  grief  of  widows,  the  orphaning 
of  little  children. 

Slowly,  in  his  clear  voice,  he  said  what 
little  he  had  to  say.  To  the  weary  crowd, 
settling  itself  into  position  once  more,  the 
speech  seemed  short;  to  the  cultivated  who 
had  been  listening  to  the  elaborate  periods 
of  great  oratory,  it  seemed  commonplace,  it 
seemed  a  speech  which  any  one  might  have 
made.  But  it  was  not  so  with  Mary  Bowman, 
nor  with  many  other  unlearned  persons.  Mary 
Bowman's  soul  seemed  to  smooth  itself  out 
like  a  scroll,  her  hands  lightened  their  clutch 
on  her  children,  the  beating  of  her  heart 
slackened,  she  gasped  no  more. 

She  could  not  have  told  exactly  what  he 
said,  though  later  she  read  it  and  learned  it 
and  taught  it  to  her  children  and  her  child 
ren's  children.  She  only  saw  him,  felt  him, 
breathed  him  in,  this  great,  common,  kindly 


THE  BATTLE-GROUND        85 

man.  His  gaze  seemed  to  rest  upon  her;  it  was 
not  impossible,  it  was  even  probable,  that  du 
ring  the  hours  that  had  passed  he  had  singled 
out  that  little  group  so  near  him,  that  desolate 
woman  in  her  motley  dress,  with  her  children 
clinging  about  her.  He  said  that  the  world 
would  not  forget  this  field,  these  martyrs;  he 
said  it  in  words  which  Mary  Bowman  could 
understand,  he  pointed  to  a  future  for  which 
there  was  a  new  task. 

"Daughter!'*  he  seemed  to  say  to  her  from 
the  depths  of  trouble,  of  responsibility,  of 
care  greater  than  her  own,  —  "  Daughter, 
be  of  good  comfort!" 

Unhindered  now,  amid  the  cheers,  across 
ground  which  seemed  no  longer  to  stir  be 
neath  her  feet,  Mary  Bowman  went  back  to 
her  house.  There,  opening  the  shutters,  she 
bent  and  solemnly  kissed  her  little  children, 
saying  to  herself  that  henceforth  they  must 
have  more  than  food  and  raiment;  they  must 
be  given  some  joy  in  life. 


V 
GUNNER  CRISWELL 


V 
GUNNER  CRISWELL 

ON  an  afternoon  in  late  September,  1910, 
a  shifting  crowd,  sometimes  numbering 
a  few  score,  sometimes  a  few  hundred,  stared 
at  a  massive  monument  on  the  battle-field 
of  Gettysburg.  The  monument  was  not  yet 
finished,  sundry  statues  were  lacking,  and 
the  ground  about  it  was  trampled  and  bare. 
But  the  main  edifice  was  complete,  the  plates, 
on  which  were  cast  the  names  of  all  the  sol 
diers  from  Pennsylvania  who  had  fought  in 
the  battle,  were  in  place,  and  near  at  hand 
the  platform,  erected  for  the  dedicatory 
services  on  the  morrow,  was  being  draped 
with  flags.  The  field  of  Gettysburg  lacks 
no  tribute  which  can  be  paid  its  martyrs. 

The  shifting  crowd  was  part  of  the  great 
army  of  veterans  and  their  friends  who  had 
begun  to  gather  for  the  dedication;  these  had 
come  early  to  seek  out  their  names,  fixed 
firmly  in  enduring  bronze  on  the  great  monu- 


go  GETTYSBURG 

ment.  Among  them  were  two  old  men.  The 
name  of  one  was  Criswell ;  he  had  been  a  gun 
ner  in  Battery  B,  and  was  now  blind.  The 
explosion  which  had  paralyzed  the  optic  nerve 
had  not  disfigured  him;  his  smooth-shaven 
face  in  its  frame  of  thick,  white  hair  was  un- 
marred,  and  with  his  erect  carriage  and  his 
strong  frame  he  was  extraordinarily  hand 
some.  The  name  of  his  friend,  bearded,  un 
tidy,  loquacious,  was  Carolus  Depew. 

Gettysburg  opens  wide  not  only  its  hos 
pitable  arms,  but  its  heart,  to  the  old  soldier. 
Even  now,  after  almost  fifty  years,the  shadow 
of  war  is  not  yet  fled  away,  the  roaring  of  the 
guns  of  battle  is  not  stilled.  The  old  soldier 
finds  himself  appreciated,  admired,  cared  for, 
beyond  a  merely  adequate  return  for  the 
money  he  brings  into  the  town.  Here  he  can 
talk  of  the  battle  with  the  proprietor  of  the 
hotel  at  which  he  stays,  with  the  college  pro 
fessor,  with  the  urchin  on  the  street.  Any 
citizen  will  leave  his  work  to  help  find  a  certain 
house  where  wounds  were  dressed,  or  where 
women  gave  out  bread,  fresh  and  hot  from  the 
oven;  or  a  certain  well,  from  which  life-saving, 


GUNNER  CRISWELL  91 

delicious  drinks  were  quaffed.  When  there 
are  great  excursions  or  dedications  such  as 
this,  the  town  is  decorated,  there  is  waving 
of  flags,  there  are  bursts  of  song. 

No  stretching  of  hospitable  arms  could  shel 
ter  the  vast  crowd  which  gathered  upon  this 
occasion.  The  boarding-houses  which  accom 
modated  ten  guests  during  the  ordinary  sum 
mer  traffic  now  took  thirty,  the  hotels  set  up 
as  many  cot-beds  as  their  halls  would  hold,  the 
students  of  the  college  and  the  theological 
seminary  shared  their  rooms  or  gave  them 
up  entirely,  in  faculty  houses  every  room  was 
filled,  and  all  church  doors  were  thrown  wide. 
Yet  many  men  —  and  old  men  —  spent  the 
night  upon  the  street. 

Gunner  Criswell  wondered  often  whether 
many  lives  ran  like  his,  up  and  up  to  a  sharp 
peak  of  happiness,  then  plunged  down,  down 
to  inexpressible  misery.  As  a  boy  he  had  been 
intensely  happy,  eager,  ambitious,  alive  to  all 
the  glory  of  the  world.  He  had  married  the  girl 
whom  he  loved,  and  had  afterward  enlisted, 
scorning  any  fears  that  he  might  not  return. 
On  the  second  day  of  July,  1863,  on  his 


92  GETTYSBURG 

twenty-third  birthday,  he  had  lost  his  sight 
in  an  explosion  on  the  battle-field  of  Gettys 
burg;  on  the  same  day  his  young  wife  had 
died  in  their  faraway  corner  of  the  state,  leav 
ing  a  helpless  baby  to  a  blind  and  sick  father. 
To-day  the  daughter  was  middle-aged,  the 
father  old.  They  lived  together  on  their  little 
farm  in  Greene  County,  Ellen  managing  the 
farm  and  doing  much  of  the  work,  Gunner 
Criswell  making  baskets.  War  had  taken  his 
sight,  his  wife,  all  his  prospects  for  life ;  it  had 
left  him,  he  said,  Ellen,  and  the  fresh,  clear 
mountain  air,  a  strong  pair  of  hands,  and  his 
own  soul.  Life  had  settled  at  last  to  a  quiet 
level  of  peace.  He  had  learned  to  read  the 
raised  language  of  the  blind,  but  he  could  not 
afford  many  books.  He  was  poor;  owing  to 
an  irregularity  in  his  enlistment  the  Govern 
ment  had  not  given  him  a  pension,  nor  had 
any  one  taken  the  trouble  to  have  the  matter 
straightened  out.  The  community  was  small 
and  scattered,  few  persons  knew  him,  and  no 
Congressman  needed  his  vote  in  that  solidly 
Republican  district.  Nor  was  he  entirely  cer 
tain  that  the  giving  of  pensions  to  those  who 


GUNNER  CRISWELL          93 

could  work  was  not  a  form  of  pauperization. 
He,  for  instance,  had  been  pretty  well  handi 
capped,  yet  he  had  got  on.  He  said  to  himself 
often  that  when  one  went  to  war  one  offered 
everything.  If  there  was  in  his  heart  any  faint, 
lingering  bitterness  because  his  country  had 
done  nothing  for  him,  who  had  given  her  so 
much,  he  checked  it  sternly. 

And,  besides,  he  said  often  to  himself  with 
amusement,  he  had  Carolus  Depew! 

It  was  Carolus  who  had  told  him,  one  even 
ing  in  July,  about  the  Pennsylvania  monu 
ment.  Carolus  had  served  in  a  different  regi 
ment,  without  injury  and  with  a  thousand 
brave  adventures.  He  was  talking  about  them 
now. 

" I'm  going!  I 'm  going  back  to  that  place. 
I  could  find  it.  I  know  where  I  knocked  that 
feller  down  with  the  butt  of  my  gun  when  my 
ammunition  gave  out.  I  know  exactly  where 
I  stood  when  the  captain  said,  'Give  'em 
hell,  Carolus!'  The  captain  and  me,  we  was 
pretty  intimate." 

The  blind  man  smiled,  his  busy  hands  going 
on  with  their  unending  work.  When  he 


94  GETTYSBURG 

smiled,  his  face  was  indescribably  beautiful; 
one's  heart  ached  for  the  woman  who  fifty 
years  ago  had  had  to  die  and  leave  him. 

"Ellen!"  he  called. 

Ellen  appeared  in  the  doorway,  in  her  short, 
unbecoming  gingham  dress.  She  had  in 
herited  none  of  her  father's  beauty,  and  the 
freshness  of  her  youth  was  gone.  She  looked 
at  her  father  kindly  enough,  but  her  voice 
was  harsh.  Ellen's  life,  too,  had  suffered 
from  war. 

"  Ellen,  Carolus  wants  me  to  go  with  him 
to  Gettysburg  in  September.  A  great  monu 
ment  is  to  be  dedicated,  and  Carolus  says 
our  names  are  to  be  on  it.  May  I  go?" 

Ellen  turned  swiftly  away.  Sometimes  her 
father's  cheerfulness  nearly  broke  her  heart. 

"  I  guess  you  can  go  if  you  want  to." 

"Thank  you,  Ellen." 

"I've  reckoned  it  all  out,"  said  Carolus. 
"We  can  do  it  for  twenty  dollars.  We  ought 
to  get  transportation.  Somebody  ought  to 
make  a  present  to  the  veterans,  the  Govern 
ment  ought  to,  or  the  trusts,  or  the  railroads." 

"Where  will  we  stay?"  asked  Gunner  Cris- 


GUNNER  CRISWELL,          95 

well.  His  hands  trembled  suddenly  and  he 
laid  down  the  stiff  reeds. 

"They'll  have  places.  I  bet  they'll  skin  us 
for  board,  though.  The  minute  I  get  there 
I  'm  going  straight  to  that  monument  to  hunt 
for  my  name.  They'll  have  us  all  arranged 
by  regiments  and  companies.  I  '11  find  yours 
for  you." 

The  hand  of  the  blind  man  opened  and 
closed.  He  could  find  his  own  name,  thank 
Heaven!  he  could  touch  it,  could  press  his 
palm  upon  it,  know  that  it  was  there,  feel 
it  in  his  own  soul  —  Adam  Criswell.  His  calm 
vanished,  his  passive  philosophy  melted  in  the 
heat  of  old  desires  relit,  desire  for  fame,  for 
power,  for  life.  He  was  excited,  discontented, 
happy  yet  unhappy.  Such  an  experience 
would  crown  his  life ;  it  would  be  all  the  more 
wonderful  because  it  had  never  been  dreamed 
of.  That  night  he  could  not  sleep.  He  saw 
his  name,  Adam  Criswell,  written  where  it 
would  stand  for  generations  to  come.  From 
that  time  on  he  counted  the  days,  almost  the 
hours,  until  he  should  start  for  Gettysburg. 

Carolus  Depew  was  a  selfish  person,  for 


g6  GETTYSBURG 

all  his  apparent  devotion  to  his  friend.  Hav 
ing  arrived  at  Gettysburg,  he  had  found  the 
monument,  and  he  had  impatiently  hunted 
for  the  place  of  Gunner  Criswell's  Battery  B, 
and  guided  his  hand  to  the  raised  letters,  and 
then  had  left  him  alone. 

"I've  found  it!"  he  shouted,  a  moment 
later.  "'Caroms  Depew,  Corporal/  big  as 
life.  'Carolus  Depew,  Corporal'!  What  do 
you  think  of  that,  say!  It'll  be  here  in  a  hun 
dred  years,  'Carolus  Depew,  Corporal'!" 

Then  Carolus  wandered  a  little  farther 
along  the  line  of  tablets  and  round  to  the 
other  side  of  the  great  monument.  Gunner 
Criswell  called  to  him  lightly,  as  though  meas 
uring  the  distance  he  had  gone.  When  Caro 
lus  did  not  answer,  Gunner  Criswell  spoke  to 
a  boy  who  had  offered  him  souvenir  postal 
cards.  It  was  like  him  to  take  his  joy  quietly, 
intensely. 

"Will  you  read  the  names  of  this  battery 
for  me?"  he  asked. 

The  boy  sprang  as  though  he  had  received  a 
command.  It  was  not  only  the  man's  blind 
ness  which  won  men  and  women  and  children; 


GUNNER  CRISWELL          97 

his  blindness  was  seldom  apparent;  it  was  his 
air  of  power  and  strength. 

The  boy  read  the  list  slowly  and  distinctly, 
and  then  refused  the  nickel  which  Criswell 
offered  him.  In  a  moment  Carolus  returned, 
still  thrilled  by  his  own  greatness,  as  excited 
as  a  child. 

"We  must  hunt  a  place  to  stay  now,"  he 
said.  "This  is  a  grand  spot.  There's  monu 
ments  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach.  Come  on. 
Ain't  you  glad  to  walk  with  '  Carolus  Depew, 
Corporal'?" 

It  was  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when 
Carolus  left  Gunner  Criswell  on  a  doorstep 
in  Gettysburg  and  went  in  search  of  rooms. 
At  a  quarter  to  six  the  blind  man  still  sat  on 
the  same  spot.  He  was  seventy  years  old  and 
he  was  tired,  and  the  cold  step  chilled  him 
through.  He  did  not  dare  to  move;  it  seemed 
to  him  that  thousands  of  persons  passed  and 
repassed.  If  he  went  away,  Carolus  could  not 
find  him.  And  where  should  he  go?  He  felt 
tired  and  hungry  and  worn  and  old ;  his  great 
experience  of  the  afternoon  neither  warmed 
nor  fed  him;  he  wished  himself  back  in  his 


g8  GETTYSBURG 

own  place  with  his  work  and  his  peace  of  mind 
and  Ellen. 

Then,  suddenly,  he  realized  that  some  one 
was  speaking  to  him.  The  voice  was  a 
woman's,  low-pitched,  a  little  imperious,  the 
voice  of  one  not  accustomed  to  be  kept 
waiting. 

"Will  you  please  move  and  let  me  ring  this 
door-bell?" 

Gunner  Criswell  sprang  to  his  feet.  He  did 
not  like  to  acknowledge  his  infirmity;  it 
seemed  always  like  bidding  for  sympathy. 
But  now  the  words  rushed  from  him,  words 
than  which  there  are  none  more  heartrending. 

"Madam,  forgive  me!   I  am  blind." 

A  perceptible  interval  passed  before  the 
woman  answered.  Once  Gunner  Criswell 
thought  she  had  gone  away. 

Instead  she  was  staring  at  him,  her  heart 
throbbing.  She  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"Why  do  you  sit  here  on  the  steps?  Have 
you  no  place  to  stay?" 

Gunner  Criswell  told  her  about  Carolus. 

"You  must  come  to  my  house,"  she  invited. 

Gunner  Criswell  explained  that  he  could 


GUNNER  CRISWELL          gg 

not  leave  his  friend.  "He  would  be  worried 
if  he  could  n't  find  me.  He"  —  Gunner  Cris- 
well  turned  his  head,  then  he  smiled  —  "he 
is  coming  now.  I  can  hear  him." 

Protesting,  scolding,  Carolus  came  down 
the  street.  He  was  with  several  other  vet 
erans,  and  all  were  complaining  bitterly 
about  the  lack  of  accommodations.  The  lady 
looked  at  Carolus's  untidiness,  then  back  at 
the  blind  man. 

"  I  can  take  you  both,"  she  said.  "  My  name 
is  Mrs.  James,  and  I  live  on  the  college  cam 
pus.  Anybody  can  direct  you.  Tell  the  maid 
I  sent  you." 

Mrs.  James's  house  was  large,  and  in  it  the 
two  old  men  found  a  comfortable  room,  dis 
tinguished  and  delightful  company,  and  a 
heart-warming  dinner.  There  were  five  other 
guests,  who  like  themselves  had  neglected  to 
engage  rooms  beforehand  —  a  famous  general 
of  the  Civil  War  and  four  lesser  officers.  Pro 
fessor  James  made  them  all  welcome,  and  the 
two  small  boys  made  it  plain  that  this  was  the 
greatest  occasion  of  their  lives.  The  dinner- 
table  was  arranged  in  a  way  which  Carolus 


ioo  GETTYSBURG 

Depew  had  never  seen;  it  was  lit  by  candles 
and  decked  with  the  best  of  the  asters  from 
Mrs.  James's  garden.  The  officers  wore  their 
uniforms,  Mrs.  James  her  prettiest  dress. 
Carolus  appreciated  all  the  grandeur,  but  he 
insisted  to  the  blind  man  that  it  was  only 
their  due.  It  was  paying  a  debt  which  society 
owed  the  veteran. 

"This  professor  did  n't  fight,"  argued  Caro 
lus.  "Why  should  n't  he  do  this  for  us?  They 
ought  n't  to  charge  us  a  cent.  But  I  bet  they 
will." 

Gunner  Criswell,  refreshed  and  restored, 
was  wholly  grateful.  He  listened  to  the  pleas 
ant  talk,  he  heard  with  delight  the  lovely 
voice  of  his  hostess,  he  felt  beside  him  the 
fresh  young  body  of  his  hostess's  little  son. 
Even  the  touch  of  the  silver  and  china 
pleased  him.  His  wife  had  brought  from  her 
home  a  few  plates  as  delicate,  a  few  spoons 
as  heavy,  and  they  had  had  long  since  to  be 
sold. 

Carolus  helped  the  blind  man  constantly 
during  the  meal;  he  guided  his  hand  to  the 
bread-plate  and  gave  him  portions  of  food, 


GUNNER   CRISt  b 

all  of  which  was  entirely  unnecessary.  The 
blind  man  was  much  more  deft  than  Carolus, 
and  the  maid  was  careful  and  interested  and 
kind.  All  the  guests  except  the  general 
watched  the  blind  man  with  admiration.  The 
general  talked  busily  and  constantly  at  the 
other  end  of  the  table;  it  was  not  to  be  ex 
pected  that  he  should  notice  a  private  soldier. 
It  was  the  general  who  had  first  proposed 
inscribing  the  names  of  all  the  soldiers  on  the 
great  monument;  the  monument,  though  he 
was  not  a  member  of  the  building  committee, 
was  his  dearest  enterprise.  Since  the  war  the 
general  had  become  a  statistician;  he  was 
interested  in  lists  and  tabulations,  he  enjoyed 
making  due  return  for  value  received,  he  liked 
to  provide  pensions,  to  place  old  soldiers  com 
fortably  in  Soldiers'  Homes.  The  war  was  long 
past;  his  memory  had  begun  to  grow  dim;  to 
his  mind  the  lives  of  the  soldiers  would  be  com 
pleted,  rounded,  by  this  tribute,  as  his  own 
would  be  by  the  statue  of  himself  which  should 
some  day  rise  upon  this  field.  It  was  he  who 
had  compiled  the  lists  for  this  last  and  greatest 
roster;  about  it  he  talked  constantly. 


102  GETTYSBURG 

Presently,  as  the  guests  finished  their  cof 
fee,  one  of  the  lesser  officers  asked  the  man 
next  him  a  question  about  a  charge,  and  then 
Professor  James  asked  another,  and  the  war 
changed  suddenly  from  a  thing  of  statistics 
and  lists  and  pensions  to  what  it  actually  was, 
a  thing  of  horror,  of  infinite  sacrifice,  of  he 
roism.  Men  drilled  and  marched  and  fought 
and  suffered  and  prayed  and  were  slain.  The 
faces  of  the  raconteurs  glowed,  the  eager  voices 
of  the  questioners  trembled.  Once  one  of  the 
officers  made  an  effort  to  draw  Gunner  Cris- 
well  into  speech,  but  Gunner  Criswell  was 
shy.  He  sat  with  his  arm  round  the  little  boy, 
the  candle-light  shining  on  his  beautiful  face, 
listening  with  his  whole  soul.  With  Carolus 
it  was  different.  Carolus  had  several  times 
firmly  to  be  interrupted. 

In  the  morning  Mrs.  James  took  the  blind 
man  for  a  drive.  The  air  was  as  fresh  and 
clear  as  the  air  of  his  own  mountains;  the  little 
boy  sat  on  a  stool  between  his  feet  and  rested 
his  shoulder  against  his  knee.  Mrs.  James 
knew  the  field  thoroughly;  she  made  as  plain 
as  possible  its  topography,  the  main  lines, 


GUNNER  CRISWELL        103 

the  great  charges,  the  open  fields  between  the 
two  ridges,  the  mighty  rocks  of  Devil's  Den, 
the  almost  impenetrable  thickets.  To  Gunner 
Criswell,  Gettysburg  had  been  a  little  smoke- 
o'erlaid  town  seen  faintly  at  the  end  of  a  long 
march,  its  recollection  dimmed  afterward 
by  terrible  physical  pain.  He  realized  now 
for  the  first  time  the  great  territory  which 
the  battle-lines  inclosed,  he  understood  the 
titanic  grandeur  of  the  event  of  which  he  had 
been  a  part,  he  breathed  in  also  the  present 
and  enduring  peace.  He  touched  the  old 
muzzle-loading  cannon;  the  little  boy  guided 
his  hand  to  the  tiny  tombstones  in  the  long 
lines  of  graves  of  the  unknown ;  he  stood  where 
Lincoln  had  stood,  weary,  heart-sick,  de 
spairing,  in  the  fall  of  '63. 

Then,  strangely  for  him,  Gunner  Criswell 
began  to  talk.  Something  within  him  seemed 
to  have  broken,  hidden  springs  of  feeling 
seemed  to  well  up  in  his  heart.  It  was  the 
talk  of  a  man  at  peace  with  himself,  reconciled, 
happy,  conscious  of  his  own  value,  sure  of  his 
place  in  the  scheme  of  things.  He  talked  as 
he  had  never  talked  in  his  life  —  of  his  youth, 


104  GETTYSBURG 

of  his  hopes,  of  his  wife,  of  Ellen.  It  was  al 
most  more  than  Mrs.  James  could  endure. 

"It  is  coming  back  here  that  makes  you 
feel  like  this,"  she  said  brokenly.  "You  real 
ize  how  tremendous  it  was,  and  you  know 
that  you  did  your  part  and  that  you  have  n't 
been  forgotten,  that  you  were  important  in  a 
great  cause." 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  answered  Gunner  Criswell, 
in  his  old-fashioned  way.  "  It  is  that  exactly." 

Mrs.  James  had  little  respect  for  rank  as 
such.  She  and  the  great  general,  the  four 
lesser  officers,  her  husband  and  her  two  boys, 
were  to  drive  together  to  the  dedication  that 
afternoon  and  to  have  seats  on  the  platform, 
and  thither  she  took  Private  Criswell.  Caro- 
lus  Depew  was  not  sorry  to  be  relieved  of  the 
care  of  the  blind  man;  he  had  found  some  old 
comrades  and  was  crazy  with  excitement. 

"It  is  a  good  thing  that  she  invited  you," 
said  Carolus,  "because  we  are  going  to  march, 
just  like  we  used  to,  and  you  could  n't  very 
well." 

The  dedication  exercises  were  not  long.  To 
the  blind  man  there  was  the  singing  which 


HE  STOOD  WHERE   LINCOLN  HAD  STOOD 


GUNNER  CRISWELL         105 

stirred  his  heart,  there  was  the  cool  air  in  his 
face,  there  was  the  touch  of  the  little  boy's 
hand,  there  was  Mrs.  James's  voice  in  ex 
planation  or  description. 

"Thereis  theGovernor!"  cried  Mrs.  James. 
"He  will  pass  right  beside  you.  There  is  the 
Secretary  of  War.  You  can  hear  him  talking 
to  the  Governor  if  you  listen  carefully.  That 
deep  voice  is  his.  Can  you  hear?11 

"Oh,  yes,"  answered  the  blind  man  happily. 

He  heard  the  speeches,  he  heard  the  music, 
he  could  tell  by  the  wild  shouting  when  the 
great  enveloping  flag  drifted  to  the  ground 
and  the  monument  stood  wholly  unveiled; 
he  could  feel  presently  the  vast  crowd  begin 
ning  to  depart.  He  stood  quietly  while  the 
great  general  near  him  laughed  and  talked, 
receiving  the  congratulations  of  great  men, 
presenting  the  great  men  to  Mrs.  James;  he 
heard  other  bursts  of  cheering,  other  songs. 
He  was  unspeakably  happy. 

Then  suddenly  he  felt  a  strange  hand  on 
his  arm.  The  general  was  close  to  him,  was 
speaking  to  him ;  there  was  a  silence  all  about 
them.  The  general  turned  him  a  little  as  he 


106  GETTYSBURG 

spoke  toward  the  great  bronze  tablets  with 
their  record  of  the  brave. 

"You  were  in  the  army?"  asked  the 
general. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"  In  what  regiment?  " 

"I  was  in  Battery  B,  sir." 

"Then,"  said  the  general,  "let  us  find  your 


name." 


Mrs.  James  came  forward  to  the  blind 
man's  side.  The  general  wished  to  make  vis 
ible,  actual,  the  rewarding  of  the  soldier,  and 
she  was  passionately  thankful  that  it  was 
upon  this  man  that  the  general's  eye  had 
fallen. 

But  Gunner  Criswell,  to  her  astonishment, 
held  back.  Then  he  said  an  extraordinary 
thing  for  one  who  hesitated  always  to  make 
his  infirmity  plain,  and  for  one  who  could  read 
the  raised  letters,  who  had  read  them,  here  on 
this  very  spot.  He  said  again  those  three 
words,  only  a  little  less  dreadful  than  the 
other  three  terrible  words,  "He  is  dead." 

"Oh,  sir,"  he  cried,  "I  cannot  read!  I  am 
blind!" 


GUNNER  CRISWELL         107 

The  general  flung  his  arm  across  the  blind 
man's  shoulder.  He  was  a  tall  man  also,  and 
magnificently  made.  It  gave  one  a  thrill  to 
see  them  stand  together. 

"I  will  read  for  you." 

"But,  sir — "  Still  Gunner  Criswell  hung 
back,  his  hand  clutching  the  little  boy's,  his 
beautiful,  sightless  eyes  turned  toward  Mrs. 
James,  as  though  he  would  have  given  any 
thing  to  save  her,  to  save  any  of  them,  pain. 
"It  is  not  a  question  of  reward,  sir.  I  would 
endure  it  all  again,  gladly  —  everything.  I 
don't  count  it,  sir.  But  do  not  look  for  my 
name.  It  is  chance,  accident.  It  might  have 
happened  to  any  one,  sir.  It  is  not  your  fault. 
But  my  name  has  been  omitted." 


VI 
THE  SUBSTITUTE 


VI 
THE  SUBSTITUTE 

IT  was  nine  o'clock  on  the  eve  of  Memorial 
Day,  and  pandemonium  reigned  on  the 
platform  of  the  little  railroad  station  at  Get 
tysburg.  A  heavy  thunderstorm,  which  had 
brought  down  a  score  of  fine  trees  on  the 
battle-field,  and  had  put  entirely  out  of  serv 
ice  the  electric  light  plant  of  the  town,  was 
just  over.  In  five  minutes  the  evening  train 
from  Harrisburg  would  be  due,  and  with  it 
the  last  delegation  to  the  convention  of  the 
Grand  Army  of  the  Republic. 

A  spectator  might  have  thought  it  doubt 
ful  whether  the  arriving  delegation  would  be 
able  to  set  foot  upon  the  crowded  platform. 
In  the  dim  light,  representatives  from  the 
hotels  and  boarding-houses  fought  each  other 
for  places  on  the  steps  beyond  which  the  town 
council  had  forbidden  them  to  go.  Back  of 
them,  along  the  pavement,  their  unwatched 


H2  GETTYSBURG 

horses  stood  patiently,  too  tired  to  make  even 
the  slight  movement  which  would  have  in 
extricably  tangled  the  wheels  of  the  omni 
buses  and  tourist  wagons.  On  the  platform 
were  a  hundred  old  soldiers,  some  of  them 
still  hale,  others  crippled  and  disabled,  and 
as  many  women,  the  "Ladies  of  the  Relief 
Corps/*  come  to  assist  in  welcoming  the 
strangers.  The  railroad  employees  elbowed 
the  crowd  good-naturedly,  as  their  duties 
took  them  from  one  part  of  the  station  to 
another ;  small  boys  chased  each  other,  racing 
up  the  track  to  catch  the  first  glimpse  of  the 
headlight  of  the  train;  and  presently  all 
joined  in  a  wild  and  joyous  singing  of  "My 
Country,  'tis  of  Thee." 

High  above  the  turmoil,  on  a  baggage  truck 
which  had  been  pushed  against  the  wall, 
stood  "Old  Man  Daggett,"  whistling.  He 
was  apparently  unaware  of  the  contrast  be 
tween  the  whiteness  of  his  beard  and  the 
abandoned  gayety  of  his  tune,  which  was  "We 
won't  go  home  until  morning" ;  he  was  equally 
unaware  or  indifferent  to  the  care  with  which 
the  crowd  avoided  his  neighborhood.  But 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  113 

though  he  had  been  drinking,  he  was  not 
drunk.  He  looked  down  upon  the  crowd,  upon 
his  former  companions  in  the  Grand  Army 
post,  who  had  long  since  repudiated  him  be 
cause  of  the  depths  to  which  he  had  fallen; 
he  thought  of  the  days  when  he  had  struggled 
with  the  other  guides  for  a  place  at  the  edge 
of  the  platform,  and,  wretched  as  was  his 
present  condition,  he  continued  to  whistle. 

When,  presently,  the  small  boys  shouted, 
"There  she  comes!"  the  old  man  added  his 
cheer  to  the  rest,  purely  for  the  joy  of  hear 
ing  his  own  voice.  The  crowd  lurched  forward, 
the  station  agent  ordered  them  back,  the 
engine  whistled,  her  bell  rang,  the  old  soldiers 
called  wildly,  "Hello,  comrades !"  "Hurrah, 
comrades!"  and  the  train  stopped.  Then  en 
sued  a  wilder  pandemonium.  There  were 
multitudinous  cries:  — 

"Here  you  are,  the  Keystone  House!" 
"Here   you   are,    the   Palace,    the  official 
hotel  of  Gettysburg!" 

"The  Battle  Hotel,  the  best  in  the  city!" 
There  were  shouts  also  from  the  visitors. 
"Hello,  comrades!   Hurrah!   Hurrah!" 


H4  GETTYSBURG 

"Did  you  ever  see  such  a  storm?" 

"Hurrah!   Hurrah!" 

At  first  it  seemed  impossible  to  bring  order 
out  of  the  chaos.  The  human  particles  would 
rush  about  forever,  wearing  themselves  into 
nothingness  by  futile  contact  with  one  an 
other.  Presently,  however,  one  of  the  car 
nages  drove  away  and  then  another,  and  the 
crowd  began  to  thin.  Old  Daggett  watched 
them  with  cheerful  interest,  rejoicing  when 
Jakie  Barsinger  of  the  Palace,  or  Bert  Taylor 
of  the  Keystone,  lost  his  place  on  the  steps. 
By  and  by  his  eyes  wandered  to  the  other  end 
of  the  dim  platform.  Three  men  stood  there, 
watching  the  crowd.  The  sight  of  three  pros 
perous  visitors,  unclaimed  and  unsolicited  by 
the  guides,  seemed  to  rouse  some  latent  en 
ergy  in  old  Daggett.  It  was  almost  ten  years 
since  he  had  guided  any  one  over  the  field. 
He  scrambled  down  from  the  truck  and  ap 
proached  the  visitors. 

"  Have  you  gentlemen  engaged  rooms?  "  he 
asked.  "Or  a  guide?" 

The  tallest  of  the  three  men  answered.  He 
was  Ellison  Brant,  former  Congressman,  of 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  115 

great  wealth  and  vast  physical  dimensions. 
His  manner  was  genial  and  there  was  a  frank 
cordiality  in  his  voice  which  his  friends  ad 
mired  and  his  enemies  distrusted.  His  com 
panions,  both  younger  than  himself,  were 
two  faithful  henchmen,  Albert  Davis  and 
Peter  Hayes.  They  had  not  heard  of  the  con 
vention  in  Gettysburg,  which  they  were 
visiting  for  the  first  time,  and,  irritated  by 
having  to  travel  in  the  same  coach  with  the 
noisy  veterans,  they  were  now  further  an 
noyed  by  the  discovery  that  all  the  hotels  in 
the  town  were  crowded.  Brant's  voice  had 
lost  entirely  its  cordial  tone. 

"Have  you  any  rooms  to  recommend ?" 
"You  can't  get  places  at  the  hotels  any 
more,"  answered  Daggett.    "But  I  could  get 
you  rooms." 

"Where  is  your  best  hotel?" 
" Right  up  here.   We'll  pass  it." 
"All  right.   Take  us  there  first." 
Brant's  irritation  found  expression  in  an 
oath  as  they  went  up  the  narrow,  uneven 
pavement.  He  was  accustomed  to  obsequious 
porters,  and  his  bag  was  heavy.    It  was  not 


n6  GETTYSBURG 

their  guide's  age  which  prevented  Brant  from 
giving  him  the  burden,  but  the  fear  that  he 
might  steal  off  with  it,  down  a  dark  alley  or 
side  street. 

''There's  the  Keystone,"  said  Daggett. 
"You  can't  get  in  there." 

The  hotel  was  brilliantly  lighted,  a  band 
played  in  its  lobby,  and  out  to  the  street 
extended  the  cheerful,  hurrahing  crowd. 
General  Davenant,  who  was  to  be  the  orator 
at  the  Memorial  Day  celebration,  had  come 
out  on  a  balcony  to  speak  to  them.  Brant 
swore  again  in  his  disgust. 

"I  can  take  you  to  a  fine  place,"  insisted 
old  Daggett. 

"  Go  on,  then,"  said  Brant.  "What  are  you 
waiting  for?" 

A  square  farther  on,  Dagget  rapped  at  the 
door  of  a  little  house.  The  woman  who  opened 
it,  lamp  in  hand,  seemed  at  first  unwilling 
to  listen. 

"You  can't  get  in  here,  you  old  rascal." 

But  Daggett  had  put  his  foot  inside  the 
door. 

"I've  got  three  fine  boarders  for  you,"  he 


THE   SUBSTITUTE  117 

whispered.  "  You  can  take  'em  or  leave  'em. 
I  can  take  them  anywhere  and  get  a  quarter 
apiece  for  them." 

The  woman  opened  the  door  a  little  wider 
and  peered  out  at  the  three  men.  Their  ap 
pearance  seemed  to  satisfy  her. 

11  Come  in,  comrades,"  she  invited  cordially. 
She  had  not  meant  to  take  boarders  during 
this  convention,  but  these  men  looked  as 
though  they  could  pay  well.  "I  have  fine 
rooms  and  good  board." 

Daggett  stepped  back  to  allow  the  stran 
gers  to  go  into  the  house. 

"  I  '11  be  here  at  eight  o'clock  sharp  to  take 
you  over  the  field,  gentlemen,"  he  promised. 

There  was  a  briskness  about  his  speech  and 
an  alertness  in  his  step,  which,  coupled  with 
the  woman's  gratitude,  kept  her  from  telling 
her  guests  what  a  reprobate  old  Daggett  was. 

By  some  miracle  of  persuasion  or  threat,  he 
secured  a  two-seated  carriage  and  an  ancient 
horse  for  the  next  day's  sight-seeing.  A  great 
roar  of  laughter  went  up  from  the  drivers  of 
the  long  line  of  carriages  before  the  Keystone 
House,  as  he  drove  by. 


Ii8  GETTYSBURG 

"Where  you  going  to  get  your  passengers, 
Daggett?" 

"Daggett's  been  to  the  bone-yard  for  a 
horse." 

"  He  ain't  as  old  as  your  joke,"  called  Dag 
gett  cheerfully. 

The  prospect  of  having  work  to  do  gave 
him  for  the  moment  greater  satisfaction  than 
the  thought  of  what  he  meant  to  buy  with 
his  wages,  which  was  saying  a  great  deal.  He 
began  to  repeat  to  himself  fragments  of  his 
old  speech. 

"  Yonder  is  the  Seminary  cupilo  objecting 
above  the  trees,"  he  said  to  himself.  "From 
that  spot,  ladies  and  gentlemen  —  from  that 
spot,  ladies  and  gentlemen  — "  He  shook  his 
head  and  went  back  to  the  beginning.  "  Yon 
der  is  the  Seminary  cupilo.  From  that  spot 
—  "  He  was  a  little  frightened  when  he  found 
that  he  could  not  remember.  "  But  when  I  'm 
there  it'll  come  back,"  he  said  to  himself. 

His  three  passengers  were  waiting  for  him 
on  the  steps,  while  from  behind  them  peered 
the  face  of  their  hostess,  curious  to  see 
whether  old  Daggett  would  keep  his  word. 


THE   SUBSTITUTE  119 

Brant  looked  at  the  ancient  horse  with  dis 
approval. 

"Is  everything  in  this  town  worn  out,  like 
you  and  your  horse?"  he  asked  roughly. 

Dagget  straightened  his  shoulders,  which 
had  not  been  straightened  with  pride  or  re 
sentment  for  many  days. 

"You  can  take  me  and  my  horse  or  you 
can  leave  us,"  he  said. 

Brant  had  already  clambered  into  the  car 
riage.  Early  in  the  morning  Davis  and  Hayes 
had  tried  to  find  another  guide,  but  had  failed. 

As  they  drove  down  the  street,  the  strangers 
were  aware  that  every  passer-by  stopped  to 
look  at  them.  People  glanced  casually  at  the 
horse  and  carriage,  as  one  among  a  multitude 
which  had  started  over  the  field  that  morn 
ing,  then,  at  sight  of  the  driver,  their  eyes 
widened,  and  sometimes  they  grinned.  Dag- 
gett  did  not  see  —  he  was  too  much  occupied 
in  trying  to  remember  his  speech.  The  three 
men  had  lighted  long  black  cigars,  and  were 
talking  among  themselves.  The  cool  morning 
air  which  blew  into  their  faces  from  the  west 
seemed  to  restore  Brant's  equanimity,  and 


120  GETTYSBURG 

he  offered  Daggett  a  cigar,  which  Daggett 
took  and  put  into  his  pocket.  Daggett's  lips 
were  moving,  he  struggled  desperately  to  re 
member.  Presently  his  eyes  brightened. 

''Ah!"  he  said  softly.  Then  he  began  his 
speech : — 

"Yonder  is  the  Seminary  cupilo  objecting 
above  the  trees.  From  there  Buford  observed 
the  enemy,  from  there  the  eagle  eye  of  Rey 
nolds  took  in  the  situation  at  a  glance,  from 
there  he  decided  that  the  heights  of  Gettys 
burg  was  the  place  to  fight.  You  will  see  that 
it  is  an  important  strategic  point,  an  import 
ant  strategic  point" —  his  lips  delighted  in 
the  long-forgotten  words.  "And  here  — " 

The  old  horse  had  climbed  the  hill,  and 
they  were  upon  the  Confederate  battle-line 
of  the  third  day's  fight.  Old  Daggett's  voice 
was  lost  for  an  instant  in  a  recollection  of  his 
ancient  oratorical  glories.  His  speech  had 
been  learned  from  a  guide-book,  but  there 
was  a  time  when  it  had  been  part  of  his  soul. 

"Here  two  hundred  cannons  opened  fire, 
ladies  and  gentlemen.  From  the  Union  side 
nearly  a  hundred  guns  replied,  not  because 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  121 

we  had  no  more  guns,  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
but,  owing  to  the  contour  of  the  ground,  we 
could  only  get  that  many  in  position  at  one 
time.  Then  came  the  greatest  artillery  duel 
of  the  war  —  nearly  three  hundred  cannons 
bleaching  forth  their  deadly  measles,  shells 
bursting  and  screaming  everywhere.  The 
shrieks  of  the  dying  and  wounded  were 
mingled  with  the  roar  of  the  iron  storm.  The 
earth  trembled  for  hours.  It  was  fearful, 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  fearful." 

The  visitors  had  been  too  deeply  interested 
in  what  they  were  saying  to  hear. 

"You  said  we  were  on  the  Confederate 
battle-line?"  asked  Brant  absently. 

"The  Confederate  battle-line,"  answered 
Daggett. 

He  had  turned  the  horse's  head  toward 
Round  Top,  and  he  did  not  care  whether  they 
heard  or  not. 

"Yonder  in  the  distance  is  Round  Top;  to 
the  left  is  Little  Round  Top.  They  are  im 
portant  strategic  points.  There  the  Unionists 
were  attackted  in  force  by  the  enemy.  There 
—  but  here  as  we  go  by,  notice  the  breech- 


122  GETTYSBURG 

loading  guns  to  our  right.  They  were  rare. 
Most  of  the  guns  were  muzzle-loaders. " 

Presently  the  visitors  began  to  look  about 
them.  They  said  the  field  was  larger  than 
they  expected;  they  asked  whether  the 
avenues  had  been  there  at  the  time  of  the 
battle;  they  asked  whether  Sherman  fought 
at  Gettysburg. 

' 'Sherman!"  said  Daggett.  "Here?  No." 
He  looked  at  them  in  scorn.  "But  here"  — 
the  old  horse  had  stopped  without  a  signal 
—  "here  is  where  Pickett's  charge  started." 

He  stepped  down  from  the  carriage  into 
the  dusty  road.  This  story  he  could  not  tell 
as  he  sat  at  ease.  He  must  have  room  to  wave 
his  arms,  to  point  his  whip. 

"They  aimed  toward  that  clump  of  trees, 
a  mile  away.  They  marched  with  steady 
step,  as  though  they  were  on  dress  parade. 
When  they  were  half  way  across  the  Union 
guns  began  to  fire.  They  was  torn  apart; 
the  rebel  comrades  stepped  over  the  dead  and 
went  on  through  the  storm  of  deadly  measles 
as  though  it  was  rain  and  wind.  When  they 
started  they  was  fifteen  thousand ;  when  they 


THE   SUBSTITUTE  123 

got  back  they  was  eight.  They  was  almost 
annihilated.  You  could  walk  from  the  stone 
wall  to  beyond  the  Emmitsburg  road  without 
treading  on  the  ground,  the  bodies  lay  so 
thick.  Pickett  and  his  men  had  done  their 
best." 

/'Well  done!"  cried  Brant,  when  he  was 
through.  " Now,  that'll  do.  We  want  to  talk. 
Just  tell  us  when  we  get  to  the  next  important 
place." 

They  drove  on  down  the  wide  avenue. 
Spring  had  been  late,  and  there  were  linger 
ing  blossoms  of  dogwood  and  Judas-tree.  Here 
and  there  a  scarlet  tanager  flashed  among  the 
leaves;  rabbits  looked  brightly  at  them  from 
the  wayside,  and  deep  in  the  woods  resounded 
the  limpid  note  of  a  wood-robin. 

Disobedient  to  Brant's  command,  Daggett 
was  still  talking,  repeating  to  himself  all  the 
true  and  false  statements  of  his  old  speeches. 
Some,  indeed,  were  mad  absurdities. 

"There's  only  one  Confederate  monument 
on  the  field,"  he  said.  "You  can  tell  it  when 
we  get  there.  It  says  'C.  S.  A.'  on  it  —  'Se- 
cesh  Soldiers  of  America.' 


I24  GETTYSBURG 

"There  was  great  fightin'  round  Spangler's 
Spring,"  he  went  on  soberly.  " There  those 
that  had  no  legs  gave  water  to  those  that  had 
no  arms,  and  those  that  had  no  arms  carried 
off  those  that  had  no  legs." 

At  the  summit  of  Little  Round  Top  the  old 
horse  stopped  again. 

"You  see  before  you  the  important  strate 
gic  points  of  the  second  day's  fight  — Devil's 
Den,  the  Wheat-Field,  the  Valley  of  Death. 
Yonder—" 

Suddenly  the  old  man's  memory  seemed  to 
fail.  He  whispered  incoherently,  then  he 
asked  them  if  they  wanted  to  get  out. 

"No,"  said  Brant. 

"But  everybody  gets  out  here,"  insisted 
Daggett  peevishly.  "You  can't  see  Devil's 
Den  unless  you  do.  You  must  get  out." 

"All  right,"  acquiesced  Brant.  "Perhaps 
we  are  not  getting  our  money's  worth." 

He  lifted  himself  ponderously  down,  and 
Davis  followed  him. 

"  I  '11  stay  here,"  said  Hayes.  "  I  '11  see  that 
our  driver  don't  run  off.  Were  you  a  soldier?  " 
he  asked  the  old  man. 


THE   SUBSTITUTE  125 

"Yes,"  answered  Daggett.  "  I  was  wounded 
in  this  battle.  I  was  n't  old  enough  to  go,  but 
they  took  me  as  a  substitute  for  another  man. 
And  I  never"  —  an  insane  anger  flared  in  the 
old  man's  eyes —  "I  never  got  my  bounty. 
He  was  to  have  paid  me  a  thousand  dollars. 
A  thousand  dollars ! "  He  repeated  it  as  though 
the  sum  were  beyond  his  computation.  ' '  After 
I  came  out  I  was  going  to  set  up  in  business. 
But  the  skunk  never  paid  me." 
"What  did  you  do  afterwards?" 
"  Nothing,"  said  Daggett.  "  I  was  wounded 
here,  and  I  stayed  here  after  I  got  well,  and 
hauled  people  round.  Hauled  people  round!" 
He  spoke  as  though  the  work  were  valueless, 
degrading. 

"Why  did  n't  you  go  into  business?" 
"I  did  n't  have  my  thousand  dollars,"  re 
plied   Daggett  petulantly.      "Didn't  I  tell 
you  I  did  n't  have  my  thousand  dollars?  The 
skunk  never  paid  me." 

The  thought  of  the  thousand  dollars  of 
which  he  had  been  cheated  seemed  to  paralyze 
the  old  man.  He  told  them  no  more  stories; 
he  drove  silently  past  Stannard,  high  on  his 


126  GETTYSBURG 

great  shaft,  Meade  on  his  noble  horse,  front 
ing  the  west.  He  did  not  mention  Stubborn 
Smith  or  gallant  Armistead.  Brant,  now  that 
he  had  settled  with  his  friends  some  legisla 
tive  appointments  which  he  controlled,  was 
ready  to  listen,  and  was  angry  at  the  old  man's 
silence. 

''When  you  take  us  back  to  town,  you  take 
us  to  that  hotel  we  saw  last  night,"  he  ordered. 
"We're  not  going  back  to  your  lady  friend. " 

Old  Daggett  laughed.  Lady  friend!  How 
she  would  scold !  He  would  tell  her  that  the 
gentlemen  thought  she  was  his  lady  friend. 

"  And  we'll  have  to  have  a  better  horse  and 
driver  after  dinner,  if  we're  going  to  see  this 
field." 

"All  right,"  said  Daggett/ 

His  morning's  work  would  buy  him  drink 
for  a  week,  and  beyond  the  week  he  had  no 
interest. 

He  drove  the  ancient  horse  to  the  hotel, 
and  his  passengers  got  out.  He  waited,  ex 
pecting  to  be  sent  for  their  baggage.  The  porch 
and  pavement  were  as  crowded  as  they  had 
been  the  night  before.  The  soldiers  embraced 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  127 

each  other,  hawkers  cried  their  picture  post 
cards  and  their  manufactured  souvenirs,  at 
the  edge  of  the  pavement  a  band  was  play 
ing. 

Brant  pushed  his  way  to  the  clerk's  desk. 
The  clerk  remembered  him  at  once  as  the 
triumphantly  vindicated  defendant  in  a  Con 
gressional  scandal,  and  welcomed  him  obse 
quiously.  ;  Brant's  picture  had  been  in  all  the 
papers,  and  his  face  was  not  easily  forgotten. 

"Well,  sir,  did  you  just  get  in?"  the  clerk 
asked  politely. 

"No,  I've  been  here  all  night,"  answered 
Brant.  "I  was  told  you  had  no  rooms." 

Meanwhile  old  Daggett  had  become  tired 
of  waiting.  He  wanted  his  money;  the  Key 
stone  people  might  send  for  the  baggage.  He 
tied  his  old  horse,  unheeding  the  grins  of  his 
former  companions  in  the  army  post  and  of 
the  colored  porters  and  the  smiles  of  the  fine 
ladies.  He  followed  Brant  into  the  hotel. 

"Who  said  we  had  n't  rooms?  "  he  heard  the 
clerk  say  to  Brant,  and  then  he  heard  Brant's 
reply:  "An  old  drunk." 

"Old  Daggett?"  said  the  clerk. 


128  GETTYSBURG 

A  frown  crossed  Brant's  handsome  face. 

"Daggett?"  he  repeated  sharply.  "  Fred 
erick  Daggett?" 

Then  he  looked  back  over  his  shoulder. 

"Yes,  Frederick  Daggett,"  said  the  old 
man  himself .  "  What  of  it?" 

"  Nothing,"  answered  Brant  nervously. 

He  pulled  out  his  purse  and  began  to  pay 
the  old  man,  aware  that  the  crowd  had  turned 
to  listen. 

But  the  old  man  did  not  see  the  extended 
hand.  He  was  staring  at  Brant's  smooth  face 
as  though  he  saw  it  for  the  first  time. 

"You  pay  me  my  money,"  he  said  thickly. 

"I  am  paying  you  your  money,"  answered 
Brant. 

The  clerk  looked  up,  meaning  to  order  old 
Daggett  out.  Then  his  pen  dropped  from  his 
hand  as  he  saw  Brant's  face. 

"You  give  me  my  thousand  dollars,"  said 
Daggett.  "I  want  my  thousand  dollars." 

Some  one  in  the  crowd  laughed.  Every  one 
in  Gettysburg  had  heard  of  Daggett's  thou 
sand  dollars. 

"Put  him  out!   He's  crazy." 


THE   SUBSTITUTE  129 

"  Be  still,"  said  some  one,  who  was  watch 
ing  Brant. 

11 1  want  my  thousand  dollars, "  said  old 
Daggett,  again.  He  looked  as  though,  even 
in  his  age  and  weakness,  he  would  spring  upon 
Brant.  "I  want  my  thousand  dollars." 

Brant  thrust  a  trembling  hand  into  his 
pocket  and  drew  out  his  check-book.  If  he 
had  had  a  moment  to  think,  if  the  face  before 
him  had  not  been  so  ferocious,  if  General 
Davenant,  whom  he  knew,  and  who  knew 
him,  had  not  been  looking  with  stern  inquiry 
over  old  Daggett's  shoulder,  he  might  have 
laughed,  or  he  might  have  pretended  that  he 
had  tried  to  find  Daggett  after  the  war,  or  he 
might  have  denied  that  he  had  ever  seen  him. 
But  before  he  thought  of  an  expedient,  it  was 
too  late.  He  had  committed  the  fatal  blunder 
of  drawing  out  his  check-book. 

''Be  quiet  and  I '11  give  it  to  you,"  he  said, 
beginning  to  write. 

Daggett  almost  tore  the  slip  of  blue  paper 
from  his  hand. 

11 1  won't  be  quiet!"  he  shouted,  in  his  weak 
voice,  hoarse  from  his  long  speech  in  the  morn- 


I3o  GETTYSBURG 

ing.  "This  is  the  man  that  got  me  to  substi 
tute  for  him  and  cheated  me  out  of  my  thou 
sand  dollars.  I  won't  be  quiet!"  He  looked 
down  at  the  slip  of  paper  in  his  hand.  Perhaps 
it  was  the  ease  with  which  Brant  paid  out 
such  a  vast  sum  that  moved  him,  perhaps  it 
was  the  uselessness  of  the  thousand  dollars, 
now  that  he  was  old.  He  tore  the  blue  strip 
across  and  threw  it  on  the  floor.  "  There  is 
your  thousand  dollars!" 

He  had  never  looked  so  wretchedly  miser 
able  as  he  did  now.  He  was  ragged  and  dusty, 
and  the  copious  tears  of  age  were  running 
down  his  cheeks.  His  were  not  the  only  tears 
in  the  crowd.  A  member  of  his  old  post,  which 
had  repudiated  him,  seized  him  by  the  arm. 

"  Come  with  me,  Daggett.  We  '11  fix  you  up. 
We'll  make  it  up  to  you,  Daggett/' 

But  Daggett  jerked  away. 

"Get  out.  I '11  fix  myself  up  if  there's  any 
fixing." 

He  walked  past  Brant,  not  deigning  to  look 
at  him,  he  stepped  upon  the  fragments  of 
paper  on  the  floor,  and  shambled  to  the  door. 
There  he  saw  the  faces  of  Jakie  Barsinger  and 


THE  SUBSTITUTE  131 

Bert  Taylor  and  the  other  guides  who  had 
laughed  at  him,  who  had  called  him  "Thou 
sand-Dollar"  Daggett,  now  gaping  at  him. 
Old  Daggett's  cheerfulness  returned. 

"You  blame'  fools  could  n't  earn  a  thou 
sand  dollars  if  you  worked  a  thousand  years. 
And  I "  —  he  waved  a  scornful  hand  over  his 
shoulder —  "I  can  throw  a  thousand  dollars 
away." 


VII 
THE  RETREAT 


VII 
THE   RETREAT 

GRANDFATHER  MYERS  rose  stiffly 
from  his  knees.  He  had  been  weeding 
Henrietta's  nasturtium  bed,  which,  thanks  to 
him,  was  always  the  finest  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Gettysburg.  As  yet,  the  plants  were 
not  more  than  three  inches  high,  and  the  old 
man  tended  them  as  carefully  as  though  they 
were  children.  He  was  thankful  now  that  his 
morning's  work  was  done,  the  wood-box  filled, 
the  children  escorted  part  of  the  way  to  school, 
and  the  nasturtium  bed  weeded,  for  he  saw 
the  buggy  of  the  mail-carrier  of  Route  4  come 
slowly  down  the  hill.  It  was  grandfather's 
privilege  to  bring  the  mail  in  from  the  box. 
This  time  he  reached  it  before  the  postman, 
and  waited  smilingly  for  him.  It  always  re 
minded  him  a  little  of  his  youth,  when  the 
old  stone  house  behind  him  had  been  a  tavern, 
and  the  stage  drew  up  before  it  each  morning 


136  GETTYSBURG 

with  flourish  of  horn  and  proud  curveting  of 
horses. 

The  postman  waved  something  white  at 
him  as  he  approached. 

"  Great  news  for  Gettysburg,"  he  called. 
"The  state  militia's  coming  to  camp  in 
July." 

"You  don't  say  so!"  exclaimed  Grand 
father  Myers. 

"Yes,  they'll  be  here  a  week." 

"How  many '11  there  be?" 

"About  ten  thousand." 

Grandfather  started  away  in  such  excite 
ment  that  the  postman  had  to  call  him  back 
to  receive  the  newspaper.  The  old  man  took  it 
and  hobbled  up  the  yard,  his  trembling  hands 
scarcely  able  to  unfold  it.  He  paused  twice  to 
read  a  paragraph,  and  when  he  reached  the 
porch  he  sat  down  on  the  upper  step,  the 
paper  quivering  in  his  hands. 

"Henrietta!"  he  called. 

His  son's  wife  appeared  in  the  doorway, 
a  large,  strong,  young  woman  with  snapping 
eyes.  She  was  drying  a  platter  and  her  arms 
moved  vigorously. 


THE   RETREAT  137 

"What  is  it,  grandfather?"  she  asked  im 
patiently. 

The  old  man  was  so  excited  he  could 
scarcely  answer. 

"There's  going  to  be  an  encampment  at 
Gettysburg,  Henrietta.  All  the  state  troops 
is  going  to  be  here.  It'll  be  like  war-time 
again.  It  says  here  — " 

"I  like  to  read  the  paper  my  own  self, 
father,"  said  Henrietta,  moving  briskly  away 
from  the  door.  She  felt  a  sudden  anger  that 
it  was  grandfather  who  had  this  great  piece 
of  news  to  tell.  "You  ain't  taken  your  weeds 
away  from  the  grass  yet,  and  it 's  most  dinner 
time." 

Grandfather  laid  down  the  paper  and  went 
to  finish  his  task.  He  was  accustomed  to 
Henrietta's  surliness,  and  nothing  made  him 
unhappy  very  long.  He  threw  the  weeds  over 
the  fence  and  then  went  back  to  the  porch. 
So  willing  was  he  to  forgive  Henrietta,  and 
so  anxious  to  tell  her  more  of  the  exciting 
news  in  the  paper,  that,  sitting  on  the  steps, 
he  read  her  extracts. 

"Ten  thousand  of  'em,  Henrietta.  They're 


138  GETTYSBURG 

going  to  camp  around  Pickett's  Charge,  and 
near  the  Codori  Farm,  and  they're  going 
to  put  the  cavalry  and  artillery  near  Rey 
nolds  Woods,  and  some  regulars  are  coming, 
Henrietta.  It  '11  be  like  war-time.  And  they  're 
going  to  have  a  grand  review  with  the  soldiers 
marchin'  before  the  Governor.  The  Gover 
nor '11  be  there,  Henrietta!  And  — " 

"I  don't  believe  it's  true,"  remarked  Hen 
rietta  coldly.  "I  believe  it's  just  newspaper 
talk." 

"Oh,  no,  Henrietta!"  Grandfather  spoke 
with  deep  conviction.  "There  wouldn't  be 
no  cheatin'  about  such  a  big  thing  as  this. 
The  Government 'd  settle  them  if  they'd  pub 
lish  lies.  And  — "  grandfather  rose  in  his  ex 
citement —  "there'll  be  cannons  a-boomin' 
and  guns  a-firin'  and  oh,  my! "  He  waved  the 
paper  above  his  head . ' '  And  the  review !  I  guess 
you  ain't  ever  seen  so  many  men  together. 
But  I  have.  I  tell  you  I  have.  When  I  laid 
upstairs  here,  with  the  bullet  in  here"  —  he 
laid  his  hand  upon  his  chest —  "I  seen  'em 
goinV  Grandfather's  voice  choked  as  the 
voice  of  one  who  speaks  of  some  tremendous 


THE   RETREAT  139 

experience  of  his  past.  "I  seen  'em  goin'. 
Men  and  men  and  men  and  horses  and  horses 
and  wagons.  They  was  millions,  Henrietta." 

Henrietta  did  not  answer.  She  said  to  her 
self  that  she  had  heard  the  account  of  grand 
father's  millions  of  men  millions  of  times. 
Wounded  at  Chancellorsville,  and  sent  home 
on  furlough,  he  had  watched  the  Confederate 
retreat  from  an  upper  window  of  the  old 
stone  house. 

"  I  woke  up  in  the  night,  and  I  looked  out," 
he  would  say.  ''Everybody  was  sleepin'  and 
I  crept  over  to  the  window.  It  was  raining 
like"  —  here  grandfather's  long  list  of  com 
parisons  failed,  and  he  described  it  simply  — 
"it  was  just  rain  and  storm  and  marchin'. 
They  kept  going  and  going.  It  was  tramp, 
tramp  all  night." 

«"Didn't  anybody  speak,  grandfather?" 
the  children  would  ask. 

"You  could  n't  hear  'em  for  the  rain,"  he 
would  answer.  "Once  in  a  while  you  could 
hear  'em  cryin'.  But  most  of  the  time  it  was 
just  rain  and  storm,  rain  and  storm.  They 
could  n't  go  fast,  they  — " 


I4o  GETTYSBURG 

"Why  did  n't  our  boys  catch  them?"  little 
Caleb  always  asked.  "  I  'd  'a'  run  after  them." 

"Our  boys  was  tired."  Grandfather  dis 
missed  the  Union  army  with  one  short  sen 
tence.  "The  rebels  kept  droppin'  in  their 
tracks.  There  was  two  dead  front  of  the 
porch  in  the  morning,  and  three  across  the 
bridge.  I  tried  to  sneak  out  in  the  night 
and  give  'em  something  to  eat,  or  ask  some 
of  'em  to  come  in,  but  the  folks  said  I  was 
too  sick.  They  would  n't  let  me  go.  I  — " 

"It  would  'a'  been  a  nice  thing  to  help 
the  enemies  of  your  country  that  you  'd  been 
fightin'  against!"  Henrietta  would  some 
times  say  scornfully. 

"You  didn't  see  'em  marchin'  and  hear 
the  sick  ones  cryin*  when  the  rain  held  up 
a  little,"  he  reminded  Henrietta.  "Oh,  I 
wish  I'd  sneaked  out  and  done  something 
for 'em!" 

Then  he  would  lapse  into  silence,  his  eyes 
on  the  long,  red  road  which  led  to  Hagers- 
town.  It  lay  now  clear  and  hot  and  treeless  in 
the  sunshine;  to  his  vision,  however,  the  dust 
was  whipped  into  deep  mud  by  a  beating  rain, 


THE   RETREAT  141 

beneath  which  Lee  and  his  army  "  marched 
and  marched. "  He  leaned  forward  as  though 
straining  to  see. 

"  I  saw  some  flags  once  when  it  lightened/' 
he  said;  "and  once  I  thought  I  saw  General 
Lee." 

11  Oh,  I  guess  not ! "  Henrietta  would  answer 
with  scornful  indulgence  to  which  grandfather 
was  deaf. 

He  read  the  newspaper  announcement  of 
the  encampment  again  and  again,  then  he 
went  to  meet  the  children  on  their  way  from 
school,  stopping  to  tell  their  father,  who  was 
at  work  in  the  field. 

"  There '11  be  a  grand  review,"  grandfather 
said.  "Ten  thousand  soldiers  in  line.  We'll 
go  to  it,  John.  It'll  be  a  great  day  for  the 
young  ones." 

"We'll  see,"  answered  John. 

He  was  a  brisk,  energetic  man,  too  busy  to 
be  always  patient. 

In  the  children  grandfather  had  his  first 
attentive  listeners. 

"Will  it  be  like  the  war?"  they  asked, 
eagerly. 


I42  GETTYSBURG 

"Oh,  something.  There  won't  be  near  so 
many,  and  they  won't  kill  nobody.  But 
it'll  be  a  great  time.  They'll  drill  all  day 
long." 

"Will  their  horses'  hoofs  sound  like  dry 
leaves  rustlin'?"  asked  little  Mary,  who  al 
ways  remembered  most  clearly  what  the  old 
man  had  said. 

"Yes,  like  leaves  a-rustlin',"  repeated  the 
old  man.  "You  must  be  good  children,  now, 
so  you  don't  miss  the  grand  review." 

All  through  the  early  summer  they  talked 
of  the  encampment.  Because  of  it  the  an 
nual  Memorial  Day  visit  to  the  battle-field 
was  omitted.  Each  night  the  children  .heard 
the  story  of  the  battle  and  the  retreat,  until 
they  listened  for  commands,  faintly  given, 
and  the  sound  of  thousands  of  weary  feet. 
Grandfather  often  got  up  in  the  night  and 
looked  out  across  the  yard  to  the  road. 
Sometimes  they  heard  him  whispering  to 
himself  as  he  went  back  to  bed.  He  got 
down  his  old  sword  and  spent  many  hours 
trying  to  polish  away  the  rust  which  had  been 
gathering  for  forty  years. 


THE   RETREAT  143 

"You  expect  to  wear  the  sword,  father?" 
asked  Henrietta,  laughing. 

News  of  the  encampment  reached  them 
constantly.  Three  weeks  before  it  opened,  they 
were  visited  by  a  man  who  wished  to  hire  horses 
for  the  use  of  the  cavalry  and  the  artillery. 
John  debated  for  a  moment.  The  wheat  was 
in,  the  oats  could  wait  until  the  encampment 
was  over,  the  price  paid  for  horse  hire  was 
good.  He  told  the  man  that  he  might  have 
Dick,  one  of  the  heavy  draft  horses. 

Grandfather  ran  to  meet  the  children  as 
they  came  from  a  neighbor's. 

" Dick's  going  to  the  war,"  he  cried  ex 
citedly. 

"To  the  war?"  repeated  the  children. 

"I  mean  to  the  encampment.  He's  been 
hired.  He's  going  to  help  pull  one  of  the  can 
nons  for  the  artill'ry." 

The  next  week  John  drove  into  town  with 
a  load  of  early  apples.  He  was  offered  work 
at  a  dozen  different  places.  Supplies  were 
being  sent  in,  details  of  soldiers  were  beginning 
to  lay  out  the  camp  and  put  up  tents,  Gettys 
burg  was  already  crowded  with  visitors. 


144  GETTYSBURG 

Grandfather  made  him  tell  it  all  the  second 
time;  then  he  explained  the  formation  of  an 
army  to  the  children. 

"First  comes  a  company,  that's  the  small 
est,  then  a  regiment,  then  a  brigade.  A  quar 
termaster  looks  after  supplies,  a  sutler  is  a 
fellow  who  sells  things  to  the  soldiers.  But, 
children,  you  should  'a'  seen  'em  marching 
by  that  night!"  Grandfather  always  came 
back  to  the  retreat.  "They  had  n't  any  sut 
lers  to  sell  'em  anything  to  eat.  I  wish  —  I  wish 
I'd  sneaked  out  and  given  'em  something." 

After  grandfather  went  upstairs  that  night 
he  realized  that  he  was  thirsty,  and  he  came 
down  again.  The  children  were  asleep,  but 
their  father  and  mother  still  sat  talking  on  the 
porch.  Grandfather  had  taken  off  his  shoes 
and  came  upon  them  before  they  were  aware. 

"I  don't  see  no  use  in  his  going,"  Henri 
etta  was  saying.  "There  ain't  no  room  for 
him  in  the  buggy  with  us  and  the  children. 
Where 'd  we  put  him?  And  he  saw  the  real 


war." 


"But  he's  looked  forward  to  it,  Henri 
etta,  he—  " 


THE   RETREAT  145 

"Well,  would  you  have  me  stay  at  home, 
or  would  you  have  the  children  stay  at  home, 
or  what?  "  Henrietta  felt  the  burden  of  Grand 
father  Myers  more  every  day.  "He'll  forget 
it  anyhow  in  a  few  days.  He  forgets  every 
thing." 

"Do  you  —  do  you — "  They  turned  to 
see  grandfather  behind  them.  He  held  weakly 
to  the  side  of  the  door.  "  Do  you  mean  I  ain't 
to  go,  Henrietta?" 

It  did  not  occur  to  him  to  appeal  to  his  son. 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  can,"  answered  Henri 
etta.  She  was  sorry  he  had  heard.  She 
meant  to  have  John  tell  him  gently  the  next 
day.  "There  is  only  the  buggy,  and  if  John 
goes  and  I  and  the  children  —  it 's  you  have 
made  them  so  anxious  to  go." 

She  spoke  as  though  she  blamed  him. 

"But — "  Grandfather  ignored  the  mean 
ness  of  the  excuse.  "But  could  n't  we  take 
the  wagon?" 

"The  wagon?  To  Gettysburg?  With  the 
whole  country  looking  on?  I  guess  they'd 
think  John  was  getting  along  fine  if  we  went 
in  the  wagon."  Henrietta  was  glad  to  have 


146  GETTYSBURG 

so  foolish  a  speech  to  answer  as  it  deserved. 
"Why,  grandfather !" 

"Then"  —  grandfather's  brain,  which  had 
of  late  moved  more  and  more  slowly,  was 
suddenly  quickened  —  "then  let  me  drive  the 
wagon  and  you  can  go  in  the  buggy.  I  can 
drive  Harry  and  nobody  '11  know  I  belong  to 
you,  and  — " 

"Let  you  drive  round  with  all  them 
horses  and  the  shooting  and  everything!" 
exclaimed  Henrietta. 

Her  husband  turned  toward  her. 

"You  might  drive  the  buggy  and  take 
grandfather,  and  I  could  go  in  the  wagon," 
he  said. 

"I  don't  go  to  Gettysburg  without  a  man 
on  such  a  day,"  said  Henrietta  firmly. 

"  But  — "  Grandfather  interrupted  his  own 
sentence  with  a  quavering  laugh.  Henrietta 
did  not  consider  him  a  man! 

Then  he  turned  and  went  upstairs,  forget 
ting  his  drink  of  water.  He  heard  Henrietta's 
voice  long  afterward,  and  John's  low  answers. 
John  wanted  him  to  go,  he  did  not  blame 
John. 


THE   RETREAT  147 

The  next  day  he  made  a  final  plea.  He  fol 
lowed  John  to  the  barn. 

11  Seems  as  if  I  might  ride  Harry, "  he  said 
tentatively. 

"O  father,  you  could  n't,"  John  answered 
gently.  "You  know  how  it  will  be,  noise 
and  confusion  and  excitement.  Harry  is  n't 
used  to  it.  You  could  n't  manage  him." 

"Seems  as  though  if  Dick  goes,  Harry 
ought  to  go,  too.  'T  ain't  fair  for  Dick  to  go, 
and  not  Harry,"  he  whispered  childishly. 

"I'm  sorry,  father,"  said  John. 

It  was  better  that  his  father  should  be  dis 
appointed  than  that  Henrietta  should  be  op 
posed.  His  father  would  forget  in  a  few  days 
and  Henrietta  would  remember  for  weeks. 

The  next  day  when  the  man  came  for  Dick 
they  found  grandfather  in  the  stable  patting 
the  horse  and  talking  about  the  war.  He 
watched  Dick  out  of  sight,  and  then  sat  down 
in  his  armchair  on  the  porch  whispering  to 
himself. 

The  children  protested  vigorously  when 
they  found  that  the  old  man  was  not  going, 
but  they  were  soon  silenced  by  their  mother. 


148  GETTYSBURG 

Grandfather  was  old,  it  was  much  better 
that  he  should  not  go. 

"You  can  tell  him  all  about  it  when  you 
come  home,"  she  said. 

"You  can  guard  the  place  while  we're 
gone,  Grandfather/'  suggested  little  Caleb. 
"Perhaps  the  Confederates  will  come  back." 

"They  would  n't  hurt  nothing,"  answered 
the  old  man.  "They  was  tired  —  tired  — 
tired." 

When  the  family  drove  away  he  sat  on 
the  porch.  He  waved  his  hand  until  he  could 
see  little  Mary's  fluttering  handkerchief  no 
more,  then  he  fell  asleep.  As  Henrietta  said, 
he  soon  forgot.  When  he  woke  up  a  little 
later,  he  went  down  to  the  barn  and  patted 
Harry,  then  he  went  out  to  the  mail-box  to 
see  whether  by  any  chance  he  had  missed  a 
letter.  He  looked  at  the  nasturtium  bed,  now 
aglow  with  yellow  and  orange  and  deep  crimson 
blossoms,  then  he  went  back  to  the  porch. 
He  was  lonely.  He  missed  the  sound  of  John's 
voice  calling  to  the  horses  down  in  the  south 
meadow  or  across  the  road  in  the  wheat-field, 
he  missed  the  chatter  of  the  children,  he 


THE   RETREAT  149 

missed  even  their  mother's  curt  answers  to 
his  questions.  For  an  instant  he  wondered 
where  they  had  gone,  then  he  sighed  heavily 
as  he  remembered.  Instead  of  sitting  down 
again  in  his  chair,  he  went  into  the  house  and 
upstairs.  There  he  tiptoed  warily  up  to  the 
garret  as  if  he  were  afraid  that  some  one  would 
follow  him,  and  drew  from  a  hiding-place 
which  he  fancied  no  one  knew  but  himself  an 
old  coat,  blue,  with  buttons  of  dull,  tarnished 
brass.  He  thrust  his  arms  into  it,  still  whis 
pering  to  himself,  and  smoothed  it  down.  His 
fingers  hesitated  as  they  touched  a  jagged 
rent  just  in  front  of  the  shoulder. 

"What —   Oh,  yes,  I  remember!" 

Grandfather  had  never  been  quite  so  for 
getful  as  this.  On  his  way  downstairs  he  took 
from  its  hook  his  old  sword. 

"  Caleb  says  I  must  guard  the  house, "  he 
said  smilingly. 

When  he  reached  the  porch,  he  turned  his 
chair  so  that  it  no  longer  faced  toward  Gettys 
burg,  whither  John  and  Henrietta  and  the 
children  had  gone,  but  toward  the  blue  hills 
and  Hagerstown.  Once  he  picked  up  the  sword 


i5o  GETTYSBURG 

and  pointed  with  it,  steadying  it  with  both 
hands.  "Through  that  gap  they  went/'  he 
said. 

Then  he  dozed  again.  The  old  clock, 
which  had  stood  on  the  kitchen  mantelpiece 
since  before  he  was  born,  struck  ten,  but  he 
did  not  hear.  Henrietta  had  told  him  where 
he  could  find  some  lunch,  but  he  did  not  re 
member  nor  care.  His  dinner  was  set  out 
beneath  a  white  cloth  on  the  kitchen  table, 
but  he  had  not  curiosity  enough  to  lift  it  and 
see  what  good  things  Henrietta  had  left  for 
him.  When  he  woke  again,  he  began  to  sing 
in  a  shrill  voice :  — 

*  *  Away  down  South  in  Dixie, 
Look  away,  look  away." 

"They  didn't  sing  that  when  they  was 
marching  home,"  he  said  solemnly.  "They 
only  tramped  along  in  the  dark  and  rain." 

Then  suddenly  he  straightened  up.  Like 
an  echo  from  his  own  lips,  there  came  from 
the  distance  toward  Gettysburg  the  same 
tune,  played  by  fifes,  with  the  dull  accom 
paniment  of  drums.  He  bent  forward,  lis 
tening,  then  stood  up,  looking  off  toward 


THE   RETREAT  151 

the  blue  hills.  At  once  he  realized  that  the 
sound  came  from  the  other  direction. 

"I  thought  they  was  all  past,  long  ago," 
he  said.  "And  they  never  played.  I  guess 
I  was  asleep  and  dreaming." 

He  sat  down  once  more,  his  head  on  his 
breast.  When  he  lifted  it,  it  was  in  response 
to  a  sharp  "Halt!"  He  stared  about  him.  The 
road  before  him  was  filled  with  soldiers,  in 
dusty  yellow  uniforms.  Then  he  was  not 
dreaming,  then  —  He  tottered  to  the  edge  of 
the  porch. 

The  men  of  the  Third  Regiment  of  the  Na 
tional  Guard  of  Pennsylvania  did  not  ap 
prove  of  the  march,  in  their  parlance  a  "  hike," 
which  their  colonel  had  decided  to  give  them 
along  the  line  of  Lee's  retreat.  They  felt 
that  just  before  the  grand  review  in  the  after 
noon,  it  was  an  imposition.  They  were  glad 
to  halt,  while  the  captain  of  each  company 
explained  that  upon  the  night  of  the  third 
of  July,  1863,  Lee  had  traversed  this  road 
on  his  way  to  recross  the  Potomac. 

When  his  explanation  was  over,  the  cap 
tain  of  Company  I  moved  his  men  a  little  to 


152  GETTYSBURG 

the  right  under  the  shade  of  the  ^maples. 
From  there  he  saw  the  moving  figure  behind 
the  vines. 

"Sergeant,  go  in  and  ask  whether  we  may 
have  water." 

The  sergeant  entered  the  gate,  and  the 
thirsty  men,  hearing  the  order,  looked  after 
him.  They  saw  the  strange  old  figure  on  the 
porch,  the  torn  bluejacket  belted  at  the  waist, 
the  sword,  the  smiling,  eager  face.  The  cap 
tain  saw,  too. 

"Three  cheers  for  the  old  soldier/'  he  cried, 
and  hats  were  swung  in  the  air. 

"May  we  have  a  drink?"  the  sergeant 
asked,  and  grandfather  pointed  the  way  to 
the  well. 

He  tried  to  go  down  the  steps  to  help  them 
pump,  but  his  knees  trembled,  and  he  stayed 
where  he  was.  He  watched  them,  still  smiling. 
He  did  not  realize  that  the  cheers  were  for 
him,  he  could  not  quite  understand  why  suits 
which  should  be  gray  were  so  yellow,  but  he 
supposed  it  was  the  mud. 

"Poor  chaps,"  he  sighed.  "They're  goin' 
back  to  Dixie." 


THEY  SAW  THE  STRANGE  OLD  FIGURE  ON  THE  PORCH 


THE   RETREAT  153 

One  by  one  the  companies  drew  up  before 
the  gate,  and  one  by  one  they  cheered.  They 
had  been  cheering  ever  since  the  beginning  of 
the  encampment  —  for  Meade,  for  Hancock, 
for  Reynolds,  among  the  dead ;  for  the  Gover 
nor,  the  colonel,  the  leader  of  the  regiment 
band,  among  the  living.  They  had  enlisted 
for  a  good  time,  for  a  trip  to  Gettysburg,  for 
a  taste  of  camp-life,  from  almost  any  other 
motive  than  that  which  had  moved  this  old 
man  to  enlist  in  '61.  They  suddenly  real 
ized  how  little  this  encampment  was  like 
war.  All  the  drill,  all  the  pomp  of  this  tin 
soldiering,  even  all  the  graves  of  the  battle 
field,  had  not  moved  them  as  did  this  old 
man  in  his  tattered  coat.  Here  was  love  of 
country.  Would  any  of  them  care  to  don  in 
fifty  years  their  khaki  blouses?  Then,  before 
the  momentary  enthusiasm  or  the  momentary 
seriousness  had  time  to  wear  away,  the  order 
was  given  to  march  back  to  camp. 

The  old  man  did  not  turn  to  watch  them 
go.  He  sat  still  with  his  eyes  upon  the  dis 
tant  hills.  After  a  while  his  sword  fell  clat 
tering  to  the  floor. 


154  GETTYSBURG 

"I'm  glad  I  sneaked  out  and  gave  'em 
something/'  he  said,  smiling  with  a  great 
content. 

The  long  leaves  of  the  corn  in  the  next  field 
rustled  in  the  wind,  the  sun  rose  higher,  then 
declined,  and  still  he  sat  there  smilingly  un 
heeding,  his  eyes  toward  the  west.  Once  he 
said,  "Poor  chaps,  it's  dark  for  'em." 

The  cows  waited  at  the  pasture  gate  for 
the  master  and  mistress,  who  were  late.  Hen 
rietta  had  wished  that  morning  that  grand 
father  could  milk,  so  that  they  would  not 
have  to  hurry  home.  Presently  they  came, 
tired  and  hungry,  the  children  eager  to  tell 
of  the  wonders  they  had  seen.  At  their 
mother's  command,  they  ran  to  let  down  the 
pasture  bars  while  their  father  led  the  horses 
to  the  barn,  and  she  herself  went  on  to  the 
porch. 

"Grandfather,"  she  said  kindly,  "we're 
here."  She  even  laid  her  hand  on  his  shoulder. 
"Wake  up,  grandfather! "  She  spoke  sharply, 
angry  at  his  failure  to  respond  to  her  unac 
customed  gentleness  of  speech.  Her  hand 
fell  upon  his  shoulder  once  more,  this  time 


THE  RETREAT  155 

heavily,  and  her  finger-tips  touched  a  jagged 
edge  of  cloth.  "  What  — "  she  began.  She 
remembered  the  old  coat,  which  she  had  long 
since  made  up  her  mind  to  burn.  She  felt  for 
the  buttons  down  the  front,  the  belt  with  its 
broad  plate.  Yes,  it  was  —  Then  suddenly 
she  touched  his  hands,  and  screamed  and 
ran,  crying,  toward  the  barn. 

"John!"  she  called.    "John!  Grandfather 
is  dead." 


VIII 
THE  GREAT  DAY 


VIII 
THE  GREAT  DAY 

OLD  BILLY  GUDE  strode  slowly  into 
the  kitchen,  where  his  wife  bent  over 
the  stove.  Just  inside  the  door  he  stopped, 
and  chewed  meditatively  upon  the  toothpick 
in  his  mouth.  His  wife  turned  presently  to 
look  at  him. 

"What  are  you  grinning  at?"  she  asked 
pleasantly. 

Billy  did  not  answer.  Instead  he  sat  down 
in  his  armchair  and  lifted  his  feet  to  the  win 
dow-sill. 

"  Won't  you  speak,  or  can't  you?  "  demanded 
Mrs.  Gude. 

When  he  still  did  not  respond,  she  gravely 
pushed  her  frying-pan  to  the  back  of  the 
stove,  and  went  toward  the  door.  Before  her 
hand  touched  the  latch,  however,  Billy  came 
to  himself. 

"Abbie!"  he  cried. 


160  GETTYSBURG 

"I  can't  stop  now,"  answered  Mrs.  Gude. 
"I  gave  you  your  chance  to  tell  what  you 
got  to  tell.  Now  you  can  wait  till  I  come 
home." 

"You'll  be  sorry." 

Mrs.  Gude  looked  back.  Her  husband  still 
grinned. 

"  You're  crazy,"  she  said,  with  conviction, 
and  went  out. 

An  instant  later  she  reopened  the  door. 
Billy  was  executing  a  pas  seul  in  the  middle 
of  the  floor. 

11  Are  you  crazy?"  she  demanded,  in  af 
fright. 

Billy  paused  long  enough  to  wink  at  her. 

"You  better  go  do  your  errand,  Abbie." 

Abbie  seized  him  by  the  arm. 

"What  is  the  matter?" 

Then  Billy's  news  refused  longer  to  be  re 
tained. 

"There's  a  great "  day  comin',"  he  an 
nounced  solemnly.  "The  President  of  the 
United  States  is  comin'  here  on  Decoration 
Day  to  see  the  battle-field." 

"What  of  that?"  said  Abbie  scornfully. 


THE   GREAT   DAY  161 

" It  won't  do  you  no  good.  He'll  come  in  the 
morning  in  an  automobile,  an*  he'll  scoot 
round  the  field  with  Jakie  Barsinger  a-settin' 
on  the  step  tellin'  lies,  an'  you  can  see  him 
go  by." 

"See  him  go  by  nothin',"  declared  Billy. 
"That 's  where  you  're  left.  He 's  comin'  in  the 
mornin'  on  a  special  train,  an'  he's  goin'  to 
be  driven  round  the  field,  an'  he's  goin'  to 
make  a  speech  at  the  nostrum"  —  thus  did 
Billy  choose  to  pronounce  rostrum  —  "an' — " 

"And  Jakie  Barsinger  will  drive  him  over 
the  field  and  to  the  nostrum,  and  you  can  sit 
and  look  on." 

"That's  where  you're  left  again,"  mocked 
Billy.  "I,  bein'  the  oldest  guide,  an'  the  best 
knowed,  an'  havin'  held  Mr.  Lincoln  by  the 
hand  in  '63,  an'  havin'  driven  all  the  other 
big  guns  what  come  here  till  automobiles  an* 
Jakie  Barsinger  come  in,  7  am  selected  to  do 
the  drivin'  on  the  great  day." 

Mrs.  Gude  sat  down  heavily  on  a  chair 
near  the  door. 

"Who  done  it,  Billy?" 

"I  don't  know  who  done  it,"    Billy  an- 


162  GETTYSBURG 

swered.  "  An'  I  don't  care.  Some  of  the  ga 
loots  had  a  little  common  sense  for  once." 

"Why  did  they  do  it?"  gasped  Mrs.  Gude. 

"Why?"  repeated  Billy.  "Why?  Be 
cause  when  you  get  people  to  talk  about  a 
battle,  it's  better  to  have  some  one  what 
saw  the  battle,  an'  not  some  one  what  was 
in  long  clothes.  I  guess  they  were  afraid  Jakie 
might  tell  something  wrong.  You  can't  fool 
this  President." 

"I  mean,  what  made  'em  change  now?19 
went  on  Abbie.  "They  knew  this  long  time 
that  Jakie  Barsinger  was  dumb." 

"I  don't  know,  an'  I  don't  care.  I  only 
know  that  I  'm  goin'  to  drive  the  President. 
I  heard  Lincoln  make  his  speech  in  '63,  an'  I 
drove  Everett  an'  Sickles  an'  Howard  an' 
Curtin,  and  this  President's  father,  an'  then" 
—  Billy's  voice  shook  —  "  then  they  said  I  was 
gettin'  old,  an'  Jakie  Barsinger  an'  all  the 
chaps  get  down  at  the  station  an'  yell  an'  howl 
like  Piute  Indians,  an'  they  get  the  custom, 
an'  the  hotels  tell  the  people  I  had  an  acci 
dent  with  an  automobile.  Automobiles  be 
danged!" 


THE  GREAT  DAY  163 

Mrs.  Glide  laid  a  tender  hand  on  his  shoul 
der. 

"  Don't  you  cry,"  she  said. 

Billy  dashed  the  tears  from  his  eyes. 

"I  ain't  cryin'.  You  go  on  with  your  er 
rand." 

Mrs.  Gude  put  on  her  sunbonnet  again. 
She  had  no  errand,  but  it  would  not  do  to  ad 
mit  it. 

"Not  if  you're  goin'  to  hop  round  like 
a  loony." 

"I'm  safe  for  to-day,  I  guess.  Besides,  my 
legs  is  give  out." 

Left  alone,  Billy  rubbed  one  leg,  then  the 
other. 

"  G'lang  there,"  he  said,  presently,  his  hands 
lifting  a  pair  of  imaginary  reins.  "  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  hidden  here  among  the  trees  an'  bushes 
waited  the  foe;  here  — " 

Before  he  had  finished  he  was  asleep.  He 
was  almost  seventy  years  old,  and  excitement 
wearied  him. 

For  forty  years  he  had  shown  visitors  over 
the  battle-field.  At  first  his  old  horse  had 
picked  his  way  carefully  along  lanes  and  across 


164  GETTYSBURG 

fields;  of  late,  however,  his  handsome  grays 
had  trotted  over  fine  avenues.  The  horses 
knew  the  route  of  travel  as  thoroughly  as 
did  their  master.  They  drew  up  before  the 
National  Monument,  on  the  turn  of  the 
Angle,  and  at  the  summit  of  Little  Round 
Top  without  the  least  guidance. 

"  There  ain't  a  stone  or  a  bush  I  don't 
know,"  boasted  Billy,  "  there  ain't  a  tree  or  a 
fence-post." 

Presently,  however,  came  a  creature  which 
neither  Billy  nor  his  horses  knew.  It  dashed 
upon  them  one  day  with  infernal  tooting  on 
the  steep  curve  of  Gulp's  Hill,  and  neither 
they  nor  Billy  were  prepared.  He  sat  easily 
in  his  seat,  the  lines  loose  in  his  hands,  while 
he  described  the  charge  of  the  Louisiana 
Tigers. 

"From  yonder  they  came,"  he  said.  "Up 
there,  a-creepin'  through  the  bushes,  an'  then 
a-dashin',  an'  down  on  'em  came — " 

And  then  Billy  knew  no  more.  The  auto 
mobile  was  upon  them;  there  was  a  crash  as 
the  horses  whirled  aside  into  the  underbrush, 
another  as  the  carriage  turned  turtle,  then  a 


THE  GREAT  DAY  165 

succession  of  shrieks.  No  one  was  seriously 
hurt,  however,  but  Billy  himself.  When, 
weeks  later,  he  went  back  to  his  old  post  be 
side  the  station  platform,  where  the  guides 
waited  the  arrival  of  trains,  Jakie  Barsinger 
had  his  place,  and  Jakie  would  not  move. 
He  was  of  a  new  generation  of  guides,  who 
made  up  in  volubility  what  they  lacked  in 
knowledge. 

For  weeks  Billy  continued  to  drive  to  the 
station.  He  had  enlisted  the  services  of  a 
chauffeur,  and  his  horses  were  now  accus 
tomed  to  automobiles. 

"  I  tamed  'em,"  he  said  to  Abbie.  "  I  drove 
'em  up  to  it,  an*  round  it,  an'  past  it.  An'  he 
snorted  it,  an'  tooted  it,  an'  brought  it  at 
'em  in  front  an'  behind.  They're  as  calm  as 
pigeons." 

Nevertheless,  trade  did  not  come  back. 
Jakie  Barsinger  had  become  the  recognized 
guide  for  the  guests  at  the  Palace,  and  John 
Harris  for  those  at  the  Keystone,  and  it  was 
always  from  the  hotels  that  the  best  patron 
age  came. 

"  Jakie  Barsinger  took  the  Secretary  of 


166  GETTYSBURG 

War  round  the  other  day,"  the  old  man  would 
say,  tearfully,  to  his  wife,  "an'  he  made  a  fool 
of  himself.  He  don't  know  a  brigade  from  a 
company.  An'  he  grinned  at  me  —  he  grinned 
at  me!" 

Abbie  did  her  best  to  comfort  him. 

"Perhaps  some  of  the  old  ones  what  used 
to  have  you  will  come  back." 

"An'  if  they  do,"  said  Billy,  "the  clerk  at 
the  Palace '11  tell  'em  I  ain't  in  the  business, 
or  I  was  in  a  accident,  or  that  I'm  dead. 
I  would  n't  put  it  past  'em  to  tell  'em  I  'm 
dead." 

Robbed  of  the  occupation  of  his  life,  which 
was  also  his  passion,  Billy  grew  rapidly  old. 
Abbie  listened  in  distress  as,  sitting  alone,  he 
declaimed  his  old  speeches. 

"Here  on  the  right  they  fought  with 
clubbed  muskets.  Here  — " 

Often  he  did  not  finish,  but  dozed  wearily 
off.  There  were  times  when  it  seemed  that  he 
could  not  long  survive. 

Now,  however,  as  Memorial  Day  ap 
proached,  he  seemed  to  have  taken  a  new 
lease  of  life.  No  longer  did  he  sit  sleepily  all 


THE  GREAT  DAY  167 

day  on  the  porch  or  by  the  stove.  He  began 
to  frequent  his  old  haunts,  and  he  assumed 
his  old  proud  attitude  towards  his  rivals. 

Mrs.  Gude  did  not  share  his  unqualified 
elation. 

" Something  might  happen,"  she  suggested 
fearfully. 

"Nothin'  could  happen,"  rejoined  Billy 
scornfully,  "unless  I  died.  An'  then  I  wouldn't 
care.  But  I  hope  the  Lord  won't  let  me  die." 
Billy  said  it  as  though  it  were  a  prayer.  "  I  'm 
goin'  to  set  up  once  more  an'  wave  my  whip 
at  'em,  with  the  President  of  the  United  States 
beside  me.  No  back  seat  for  him!  Colonel 
Mott  said  the  President  'd  want  to  sit  on  the 
front  seat.  An'  he  said  he'd  ask  questions. 
'Let  him  ask,'  I  said.  'I  ain't  afraid  of  no 
questions  nobody  can  ask.  No  s'tistics,  nor 
manoeuvres,  nor  — ' ' 

"  But  Jakie  Barsinger  might  do  you  a  mean 
trick." 

"  There  ain't  nothin'  he  can  do.  Mott  said 
to  me,  'Be  on  time,  Gude,  bright  an'  early.' " 
Then  Billy's  voice  sank  to  a  whisper.  "They  're 
goin'  to  stop  the  train  out  at  the  sidin'  back 


168  GETTYSBURG 

of  the  Seminary,  so  as  to  fool  the  crowd. 
They'll  be  waitin'  in  town,  an*  we'll  be  off 
an'  away.  An'  by  an'  by  we'll  meet  Jakie 
with  a  load  of  jays.  Oh,  it'll  be  —  it'll  be  im 
mense!" 

Through  the  weeks  that  intervened  before 
the  thirtieth  of  May,  Abbie  watched  him 
anxiously.  Each  day  he  exercised  the  horses, 
grown  fat  and  lazy;  each  day  he  went  over 
the  long  account  of  the  battle,  —  as  though 
he  could  forget  what  was  part  and  parcel  of 
himself!  His  eyes  grew  brighter,  and  there 
was  a  flush  on  his  old  cheeks.  The  committee 
of  arrangements  lost  their  fear  that  they  had 
been  unwise  in  appointing  him. 

"Gude's  just  as  good  as  he  ever  was,"  said 
Colonel  Mott.  "It  wouldn't  do  to  let  the 
President  get  at  Barsinger.  If  you  stop  him  in 
the  middle  of  a  speech,  he  has  to  go  back  to 
the  beginning."  Then  he  told  a  story  of  which 
he  never  grew  weary.  "Here  on  this  field 
lay  ten  thousand  dead  men,'  says  Barsinger. 
'Ten  thousand  dead  men,  interspersed  with 
one  dead  lady.'  No;  Billy  Gude's  all  right." 

Colonel  Mott  sighed  with  relief.  The  plan- 


THE   GREAT   DAY  169 

ning  for  a  President's  visit  was  no  light  task. 
There  were  arrangements  to  be  made  with 
the  railroad  companies,  the  secret  service  men 
were  to  be  stationed  over  the  battle-field,  there 
were  to  be  trustworthy  guards,  a  programme 
was  to  be  made  out  for  the  afternoon  meeting 
at  which  the  President  was  to  speak. 

The  night  before  the  thirtieth  Abbie  did 
not  sleep.  She  heard  Billy  talking  softly  to 
himself. 

''Right  yonder,  Mr.  President,  they  came 
creepin'  through  the  bushes;  right  yonder  — " 
Then  he  groaned  heavily,  and  Abbie  shook 
him  awake. 

"I  was  dreamin'  about  the  automobile," 
he  said,  confusedly.  "I — oh,  ain't  it  time 
to  get  up?" 

At  daylight  he  was  astir,  and  Abbie  helped 
him  dress.  His  hand  shook  and  his  voice 
trembled  as  he  said  good-bye. 

"You  better  come  to  the  window  an'  see 
me  go  past,"  he  said;  then,  "  What  you  cryin' 
about,  Abbie?" 

"I'm  afraid  somethin'  's  goin'  to  happen," 
sobbed  the  old  woman.  " I'm  afraid  — " 


170  GETTYSBURG 

"Afraid!"  he^  mocked.  "Do  you  think, 
too,  that  I'm  old  an'  wore  out  an'  no  good? 
You '11  see!" 

And,  defiantly,  he  went  out. 

Half  an  hour  later  he  drove  to  the  siding 
where  the  train  was  to  stop.  A  wooden  plat 
form  had  been  built  beside  the  track,  and  on 
it  stood  Colonel  Mott  and  the  rest  of  the 
committee. 

"Drive  back  there,  Billy,"  Colonel  Mott 
commanded.  "Then  when  I  signal  to  you, 
you  come  down  here.  And  hold  on  to  your 
horses.  There's  going  to  be  a  Presidential 
salute.  As  soon  as  that's  over  we'll  start." 

Billy  drew  back  to  the  side  of  the  road. 
Evidently,  through  some  mischance,  the  plans 
for  the  President's  reception  had  become 
known,  and  there  was  a  rapidly  increasing 
crowd.  On  the  slope  of  the  hill  a  battery  of 
artillery  awaited  the  word  to  fire.  Billy  sat 
straight,  his  eyes  on  his  horses'  heads,  his  old 
hands  gripping  the  lines.  He  watched  with 
pride  the  marshal  waving  all  carriages  back 
from  the  road.  Only  he,  Billy  Gude,  had  the 
right  to  be  there.  He  was  to  drive  the  Presi- 


THE  GREAT  DAY  171 

dent.  The  great  day  had  come.  He  chuckled 
aloud,  not  noticing  that  just  back  of  the  mar 
shal  stood  Jakie  Barsinger's  fine  new  carriage, 
empty  save  for  Jakie  himself. 

Presently  the  old  man  sat  still  more  erectly. 
He  heard,  clear  above  the  noise  of  the  crowd, 
a  distant  whistle  —  that  same  whistle  for 
which  he  had  listened  daily  when  he  had  the 
best  place  beside  the  station  platform.  The 
train  was  rounding  the  last  curve.  In  a  mo 
ment  more  it  would  come  slowly  to  view  out 
of  the  fatal  Railroad  Cut,  whose  forty-year- 
old  horrors  Billy  could  describe  so  well. 

The  fields  were  black  now  with  the  crowd, 
the  gunners  watched  their  captain,  and  slowly 
the  train  drew  in  beside  the  bright  pine  plat 
form.  At  the  door  of  the  last  car  appeared 
a  tall  and  sturdy  figure,  and  ten  thousand 
huzzas  made  the  hills  ring.  Then  a  thunder 
of  guns  awoke  echoes  which,  like  the  ter 
ror-stricken  cries  from  the  Railroad  Cut, 
had  been  silent  forty  years.  Billy,  listening, 
shivered.  The  horror  had  not  grown  less  with 
his  repeated  telling. 

He    leaned    forward    now,    watching    for 


172  GETTYSBURG 

Colonel  Mott's  uplifted  hand;  he  saw  him 
signal,  and  then  —  From  behind  he  heard  a 
cry,  and  turned  to  look;  then  he  swiftly  swung 
Dan  and  Bess  in  toward  the  fence.  A  pair 
of  horses,  maddened  by  the  noise  of  the  firing, 
dashed  toward  him.  He  heard  women  scream, 
and  thought,  despairing,  of  Abbie's  prophecy. 
There  would  not  be  room  for  them  to  pass. 
After  all,  he  would  not  drive  the  President. 
Then  he  almost  sobbed  in  his  relief.  They  were 
safely  by.  He  laughed  grimly.  It  was  Jakie 
Barsinger  with  his  fine  new  carriage.  Then 
Billy  clutched  the  reins  again.  In  the  short 
glimpse  he  had  caught  of  Jakie  Barsinger, 
Jakie  did  not  seem  frightened  or  disturbed. 
Nor  did  he  seem  to  make  any  effort  to  hold 
his  horses  in.  Billy  stared  into  the  cloud  of 
dust  which  followed  him.  What  did  it  mean? 
And  as  he  stared  the  horses  stopped,  skillfully 
drawn  in  by  Jakie  Barsinger's  firm  hand  be 
side  the  yellow  platform.  The  cloud  of  dust 
thinned  a  little,  and  Billy  saw  plainly  now. 
Into  the  front  seat  of  the  tourists'  carriage, 
beside  Jakie  Barsinger,  climbed  the  President 
of  the  United  States.  Billy  rose  in  his  seat. 


THE   GREAT  DAY  173 

"Colonel  Mott!"  he  called,  frantically. 
"Colonel  Mott!" 

But  no  one  heeded.  If  any  one  heard,  he 
thought  it  was  but  another  cheer.  The  crowd 
swarmed  down  to  the  road  shouting,  huzza 
ing,  here  and  there  a  man  or  a  girl  pausing  to 
steady  a  camera  on  a  fence-post,  here  and 
there  a  father  lifting  his  child  to  his  shoulder. 

"Where  is  the  President?"  they  asked,  and 
Billy  heard  the  answer. 

"There,  there!  Look!  By  Jakie  Barsinger!" 

The  old  man's  hands  dropped,  and  he 
sobbed.  It  had  all  been  so  neatly  done:  the 
pretense  of  a  runaway,  the  confusion  of  the 
moment,  Colonel  Mott's  excitement  —  and 
the  crown  of  his  life  was  gone. 

Long  after  the  crowd  had  followed  in  the 
dusty  wake  of  Jakie  Barsinger's  carriage, 
he  turned  his  horses  toward  home.  A  hundred 
tourists  had  begged  him  to  take  them  over 
the  field,  but  he  had  silently  shaken  his  head. 
He  could  not  speak.  Dan  and  Bess  trotted 
briskly,  mindful  of  the  cool  stable  toward 
which  their  heads  were  set,  and  they  whinnied 
eagerly  at  the  stable  door.  They  stood  there 


174  GETTYSBURG 

for  half  an  hour,  however,  before  their  master 
clambered  down  to  unharness  them.  He 
talked  to  himself  feebly,  and,  when  he  had 
finished,  went  out,  not  to  the  house,  where 
Abbie,  who  had  watched  Jakie  Barsinger 
drive  by,  waited  in  an  agony  of  fear,  but  down 
the  street,  and  out  by  quiet  alleys  and  lanes 
to  the  National  Cemetery.  Sometimes  he 
looked  a  little  wonderingly  toward  the  crowded 
main  streets,  not  able  to  recall  instantly  why 
the  crowd  was  there,  then  remembering  with 
a  rage  which  shook  him  to  the  soul.  Fleeting, 
futile  suggestions  of  revenge  rushed  upon 
him  —  a  loosened  nut  in  Jakie  Barsinger's 
swingle-tree  or  a  cut  trace  —  and  were  re 
pelled  with  horror  which  hurt  as  much  as  the 
rage.  All  the  town  would  taunt  him  now. 
Why  had  he  not  turned  his  carriage  across 
the  road  and  stopped  Jakie  Barsinger  in  his 
wild  dash?  It  would  have  been  better  to  have 
been  killed  than  to  have  lived  to  this. 

Around  the  gate  of  the  cemetery  a  company 
of  cavalry  was  stationed,  and  within  new 
thousands  of  visitors  waited.  It  was  after 
noon  now,  and  almost  time  for  the  trip  over 


THE  GREAT  DAY  175 

the  field  to  end  and  the  exercises  to  begin. 
As  Billy  passed  through  the  crowd,  he  felt 
a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Thought  you  were  going  to  drive  the 
President,"  said  a  loud  voice. 

Billy  saw  for  an  instant  the  strange  faces 
about  him,  gaping,  interested  to  hear  his 
answer. 

"I  ain't  nobody's  coachman/'  he  said 
coolly,  and  walked  on. 

"They  ain't  goin'  to  get  a  rise  out  of  me," 
he  choked.  "They  ain't  goin'  to  get  a  rise  out 
of  me." 

He  walked  slowly  up  the  wide  avenue,  and 
presently  sat  down  on  a  bench.  He  was  tired 
to  death,  his  head  nodded,  and  soon  he  slept, 
regardless  of  blare  of  band  and  shouting  of 
men  and  roll  of  carriage  wheels.  There  was 
a  song,  and  then  a  prayer,  but  Billy  heard 
nothing  until  the  great  speech  was  almost 
over.  Then  he  opened  his  eyes  drowsily,  and 
saw  the  throng  gathered  round  the  wistaria- 
covered  rostrum,  on  which  the  President 
was  standing.  Billy  sprang  up.  At  least  he 
would  hear  the  speech.  Nobody  could  cheat 


I76  GETTYSBURG 

him  out  of  that.  He  pushed  his  way  through 
the  crowd,  which,  seeing  his  white  hair, 
opened  easily  enough.  Then  he  stood  trem 
bling,  all  his  misery  rushing  over  him  again 
at  sight  of  the  tall  figure.  He  was  to  have 
sat  beside  him,  to  have  talked  with  him!  He 
rubbed  a  weak  hand  across  his  eyes.  Sud 
denly  he  realized  that  the  formal  portion  of 
the  speech  was  over,  the  President  was  saying 
now  a  short  farewell. 

"I  wish  to  congratulate  the  Commission 
which  has  made  of  this  great  field  so  worthy 
a  memorial  to  those  who  died  here.  I  wish  to 
express  my  gratification  to  the  citizens  of  this 
town  for  their  share  in  the  preservation  of 
the  field,  and  their  extraordinary  knowledge 
of  the  complicated  tactics  of  the  battle.  Years 
ago  my  interest  was  aroused  by  hearing  my 
father  tell  of  a  visit  here,  and  of  the  vivid 
story  of  a  guide  —  his  name,  I  think,  was 
William  Gude.  I—" 

"'His  name,  I  think/"  old  Billy  repeated 
dully.  "'His  name,  I  think,  was  William 
Gude.'" 

It  was  a  few  seconds  before  the  purport  of 


THE  GREAT  DAY  177 

it  reached  his  brain.  Then  he  raised  both 
arms,  unaware  that  the  speech  was  ended  and 
that  the  crowd  had  begun  to  cheer. 

"Oh,  Mr.  President,"  he  called,  "my  name 
is  William  Gude!"  His  head  swam.  They 
were  turning  away;  they  did  not  hear.  "My 
name  is  William  Gude,"  he  said  again  piti 
fully. 

The  crowd,  pressing  toward  Jakie  Bar- 
singer's  carriage,  into  which  the  President 
was  stepping,  carried  him  with  them.  They 
looked  about  them  questioningly;  they  could 
see  Colonel  Mott,  who  was  at  the  President's 
side,  beckoning  to  some  one ;  who  it  was  they 
could  not  tell.  Then  above  the  noise  they 
heard  him  call. 

"Billy  Gude!  "he  shouted.  "Billy—" 

"It's  me!  "said  Billy. 

He  stared,  blinking,  at  Colonel  Mott  and  at 
the  President. 

Colonel  Mott  laid  his  hand  on  Billy's 
shoulder.  He  had  been  trying  to  invent  a 
suitable  punishment  for  Jakie  Barsinger.  No 
more  custom  should  come  to  him  through  the 
Commission. 


178  GETTYSBURG 

"The  President  wants  you  to  ride  down  to 
the  station  with  him,  Billy,"  he  said.  "He 
wants  to  know  whether  you  remember  his 
father." 

As  in  a  dream,  Billy  climbed  into  the  car 
riage.  The  President  sat  on  the  rear  seat  now, 
and  Billy  was  beside  him. 

"I  remember  him  like  yesterday,"  he  de 
clared.  "  I  remember  what  he  said  an*  how  he 
looked,  an'  —  "  the  words  crowded  upon  each 
other  as  eagerly  as  the  President's  questions, 
and  Billy  forgot  all  save  them  —  the  cheering 
crowd,  the  wondering,  envious  eyes  of  his  fel 
low  citizens;  he  did  not  even  remember  that 
Jakie  Barsinger  was  driving  him,  Billy  Gude, 
and  the  President  of  the  United  States  to 
gether.  Once  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  Abbie's 
frightened  face,  and  he  waved  his  hand  and 
the  President  lifted  his  hat. 

"  I  wish  I  could  have  known  about  you 
earlier  in  the  day,"  said  the  President,  as  he 
stepped  down  at  the  railroad  station.  Then 
he  took  Billy's  hand  in  his.  "It  has  been  a 
great  pleasure  to  talk  to  you." 

The  engine  puffed   near  at  hand,   there 


THE  GREAT  DAY  179 

were  new  cheers  from  throats  already  hoarse 
with  cheering,  and  the  great  man  was  gone, 
the  great  day  over.  For  an  instant  Billy 
watched  the  train,  his  hand  uplifted  with 
a  thousand  other  hands  in  a  last  salute 
to  the  swift-vanishing  figure  in  the  observa 
tion-car.  Then  he  turned,  to  meet  the  unwill 
ing  eyes  of  Jakie  Barsinger,  helpless  to  move 
his  carriage  in  the  great  crowd.  For  an  in 
stant  the  recollection  of  his  wrongs  over 
whelmed  him. 

"  Jakie — "  he  began.  Then  he  laughed. 
The  crowd  was  listening,  open-mouthed.  For 
the  moment,  now  that  the  President  was 
gone,  he,  Billy  Gude,  was  the  great  man.  He 
stepped  nimbly  into  the  carriage.  "Coach 
man,"  he  commanded,  "you  can  drive 
home." 


IX 
MARY  BOWMAN 


IX 

MARY   BOWMAN 

OUTSIDE  the  broad  gateway  which  leads 
into  the  National  Cemetery  at  Gettys 
burg  and  thence  on  into  the  great  park,  there 
stands  a  little  house  on  whose  porch  there 
may  be  seen  on  summer  evenings  an  old 
woman.  The  cemetery  with  its  tall  monu 
ments  lies  a  little  back  of  her  and  to  her  left; 
before  her  is  the  village;  beyond,  on  a  little 
eminence,  the  buildings  of  the  Theological 
Seminary;  and  still  farther  beyond  the  foot 
hills  of  the  Blue  Ridge.  The  village  is  tree- 
shaded,  the  hills  are  set  with  fine  oaks  and 
hickories,  the  fields  are  green.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  in  all  the  world  an  expanse 
more  lovely.  Those  who  have  known  it  in 
their  youth  grow  homesick  for  it;  their  eyes 
ache  and  their  throats  tighten  as  they  remem 
ber  it.  At  sunset  it  is  bathed  in  purple  light, 
its  trees  grow  darker,  its  hills  more  shadowy, 


184  GETTYSBURG 

its  hollows  deeper  and  more  mysterious. 
Then,  lifted  above  the  dark  masses  of  the 
trees,  one  may  see  marble  shafts  and  domes 
turn  to  liquid  gold. 

The  little  old  woman,  sitting  with  folded 
hands,  is  Mary  Bowman,  whose  husband  was 
lost  on  this  field.  The  battle  will  soon  be  fifty 
years  in  the  past,  she  has  been  for  that  long 
a  widow.  She  has  brought  up  three  children, 
two  sons  and  a  daughter.  One  of  her  sons  is 
a  merchant,  one  is  a  clergyman,  and  her  daugh 
ter  is  well  and  happily  married.  Her  own  life 
of  activity  is  past ;  she  is  waited  upon  tenderly 
and  loved  dearly  by  her  children  and  her 
grandchildren.  She  was  born  in  this  village, 
she  has  almost  never  been  away.  From  here 
her  husband  went  to  war,  here  he  is  buried 
among  thousands  of  unknown  dead,  here  she 
nursed  the  wounded  and  dying,  here  she  will 
be  buried  herself  in  the  Evergreen  cemetery, 
beyond  the  National  cemetery. 

She  has  seen  beauty  change  to  desolation, 
trees  shattered,  fields  trampled,  walls  broken, 
all  her  dear,  familiar  world  turned  to  chaos; 
she  has  seen  desolation  grow  again  to  beauty. 


MARY  BOWMAN  185 

These  hills  and  streams  were  always  lovely, 
now  a  nation  has  determined  to  keep  them 
forever  in  the  same  loveliness.  Here  was  a 
rocky,  wooded  field,  destined  by  its  owner  to 
cultivation ;  it  has  been  decreed  that  its  rough 
picturesqueness  shall  endure  forever.  Here  is 
a  lowly  farmhouse ;  upon  it  no  hand  of  change 
shall  be  laid  while  the  nation  continues.  Pre 
served,  consecrated,  hallowed  are  the  woods 
and  lanes  in  which  Mary  Bowman  walked 
with  the  lover  of  her  youth. 

Broad  avenues  lead  across  the  fields,  mark 
ing  the  lines  where  by  thousands  Northerners 
and  Southerners  were  killed.  Big  Round  Top, 
to  which  one  used  to  journey  by  a  difficult 
path,  is  now  accessible;  Union  and  Confed 
erate  soldiers,  returning,  find  their  way  with 
ease  to  old  positions ;  lads  from  West  Point  are 
brought  to  see,  spread  out  before  them  as  on  a 
map,  that  Union  fish-hook,  five  miles  long,  in 
closing  that  slightly  curved  Confederate  line. 

Monuments  are  here  by  hundreds,  names 
by  thousands,  cast  in  bronze,  as  endurable 
as  they  can  be  made  by  man.  All  that  can  be 
done  in  remembrance  of  those  who  fought 


186  GETTYSBURG 

here  has  been  done,  all  possible  effort  to 
identify  the  unknown  has  been  made.  For 
fifty  years  their  little  trinkets  have  been  pre 
served,  their  pocket  Testaments,  their  pho 
tographs,  their  letters  —  letters  addressed 
to  "My  precious  son,"  "My  dear  brother," 
"My  beloved  husband."  Seeing  them  to 
day,  you  will  find  them  marked  by  a  num 
ber.  This  stained  scapular,  this  little  house 
wife  with  its  rusty  scissors,  this  unsigned 
letter,  dated  in  '63,  belonged  to  him  who  lies 
now  in  Grave  Number  20  or  Number  3500. 

There  is  almost  an  excess  of  tenderness  for 
these  dead,  yet  mixed  with  it  is  a  strange  feel 
ing  of  remoteness.  We  mourn  them,  praise 
them,  laud  them,  but  we  cannot  understand 
them.  To  this  generation  war  is  strange,  its 
sacrifices  are  uncomprehended,  incompre 
hensible.  It  is  especially  so  in  these  latter 
years,  since  those  who  came  once  to  this  field 
come  now  no  more.  Once  the  heroes  of  the 
war  were  familiar  figures  upon  these  streets; 
Meade  with  his  serious,  bearded  face,  Slocum 
with  his  quick,  glancing  eyes,  Hancock  with 
his  distinguished  air,  Howard  with  his  empty 


MARY  BOWMAN  187 

sleeve.  They  have  gone  hence,  and  with  them 
have  marched  two  thirds  of  Gettysburg's  two 
hundred  thousand. 

Mary  Bowman  has  seen  them  all,  has  heard 
them  speak.  Sitting  on  her  little  porch,  she 
has  watched  most  of  the  great  men  of  the 
United  States  go  by,  Presidents,  cabinet  of 
ficials,  ambassadors,  army  officers,  and  also 
famous  visitors  from  other  lands  who  know 
little  of  the  United  States,  but  to  whom 
Gettysburg  is  as  a  familiar  country.  She  has 
watched  also  that  great,  rapidly  shrinking 
army  of  private  soldiers  in  faded  blue  coats, 
who  make  pilgrimages  to  see  the  fields  and 
hills  upon  which  they  fought.  She  has  tried 
to  make  herself  realize  that  her  husband,  if 
he  had  lived,  would  be  like  these  old  men, 
maimed,  feeble,  decrepit,  but  the  thought  pos 
sesses  no  reality  for  her.  He  is  still  young, 
still  erect,  he  still  goes  forth  in  the  pride  of 
life  and  strength. 

Mary  Bowman  will  not  talk  about  the  battle. 
To  each  of  her  children  and  each  of  her  grand 
children,  she  has  told  once,  as  one  who  per 
forms  a  sacred  duty,  its  many-sided  story. 


188  GETTYSBURG 

She  has  told  each  one  of  wounds  and  suffering, 
but  she  has  not  omitted  tales  of  heroic  death, 
of  promotion  on  the  field,  of  stubborn  fight  for 
glory.  By  others  than  her  own  she  will  not 
be  questioned.  A  young  officer,  recounting  the 
rigors  of  the  march,  has  written,  "Forsan  et 
haec  olim  meminisse  juvabit," —  "Perchance 
even  these  things  it  will  be  delightful  to  re 
member.  "  To  feel  delight,  remembering  these 
things,  Mary  Bowman  has  never  learned. 
Her  neighbors  who  suffered  with  her,  some 
just  as  cruelly,  have  recovered;  their  wounds 
have  healed,  as  wounds  do  in  the  natural 
course  of  things.  But  Mary  Bowman  has  re 
mained  mindful;  she  has  been,  for  all  these 
years,  widowed  indeed. 

Her  faithful  friend  and  neighbor,  Hannah 
Casey,  is  the  great  joy  of  visitors  to  the  battle 
field.  She  will  talk  incessantly,  enthusiasti 
cally,  with  insane  invention.  The  most  mor 
bid  visitor  will  be  satisfied  with  Hannah's 
wild  account  of  a  Valley  of  Death  filled  to  the 
rim  with  dead  bodies,  of  the  trickling  rivulet 
of  Plum  Creek  swollen  with  blood  to  a  roar 
ing  torrent.  But  Mary  Bowman  is  different. 


MARY   BOWMAN  189 

Her  granddaughter,  who  lives  with  her,  is 
curious  about  her  emotions. 

"Do  you  feel  reconciled ?"  she  will  ask. 
"Do  you  feel  reconciled  to  the  sacrifice, 
grandmother?  Do  you  think  of  the  North  and 
South  as  reunited,  and  are  you  glad  you 
helped?" 

Her  grandmother  answers  with  no  words, 
but  with  a  slow,  tearful  smile.  She  does  not 
analyze  her  emotions.  Perhaps  it  is  too  much 
to  expect  of  one  who  has  been  a  widow  for 
fifty  years,  that  she  philosophize  about  it! 

Sitting  on  her  porch  in  the  early  morning, 
she  remembers  the  first  of  July,  fifty  years  ago. 

"Madam!"  cried  the  soldier  who  galloped 
to  the  door,  "there  is  to  be  a  battle  in  this 
town!" 

"Here?"  she  had  answered  stupidly. 
"Here?" 

Sitting  there  at  noon,  she  hears  the  roaring 
blasts  of  artillery,  she  seems  to  see  shells,  as 
of  old,  curving  like  great  ropes  through  the 
air,  she  remembers  that  somewhere  on  this 
field,  struck  by  a  missile  such  as  that,  her 
husband  fell. 


igo  GETTYSBURG 

Sitting  there  in  the  moonlight,  she  remem 
bers  Early  on  his  white  horse,  with  muffled 
hoofs,  riding  spectralwise  down  the  street 
among  the  sleeping  soldiers. 

"  Up,  boys! "  he  whispers,  and  is  heard  even 
in  that  heavy  stupor.  "Up,  boys,  up!  We 
must  get  away!" 

She  hears  also  the  pouring  rain  of  July  the 
fourth,  falling  upon  her  little  house,  upon  that 
wide  battle-field,  upon  her  very  heart.  She 
sees,  too,  the  deep,  sad  eyes  of  Abraham  Lin 
coln,  she  hears  his  voice  in  the  great  sentences 
of  his  simple  speech,  she  feels  his  message  in 
her  soul. 

"Daughter!"  he  seems  to  say,  "Daughter, 
be  of  good  comfort!" 

So,  still,  Mary  Bowman  sits  waiting.  She  is 
a  Christian,  she  has  great  hope;  as  her  waiting 
has  been  long,  so  may  the  joy  of  her  reunion 
be  full. 


THE   END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


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